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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29160948">The Architect's Shield</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/disasterhawke/pseuds/disasterhawke'>disasterhawke</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Amell (Dragon Age) is not a Grey Warden, Angst, Background Amell (Dragon Age), Canonical Character Death, Complicated Relationships, Cullen Smut, F/F, F/M, Family, Father Figures, Ferelden (Dragon Age), Fic Already Complete, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Inquisition Agents (Dragon Age), M/M, Military Background, Minor Canonical Character(s), Minor Character Death, Multi, Named Amell (Dragon Age), Not That Architect, Past Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Secret Identity, Secret Past, Secrets, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Skyhold (Dragon Age), Twins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:35:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>29,830</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29160948</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/disasterhawke/pseuds/disasterhawke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Salina knows how to draw the plans for a building that will withstand even the greatest assault, but she's got no idea how to navigate herself out of the mess she's ended up in. Because she's ass-deep in an Inquisition full of people that should hate her, frequently has to report to one of the last people in the world she wants to think about, and no one gives the civilians proper shoes.</p>
<p>But she has to help.</p>
<p>[A Cullen/OC novella about difficult pasts, following orders, and what it means to go home.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cullen Rutherford/Original Character(s), Cullen Rutherford/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. In Peace We Lie</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hawke, I said to myself, sitting down at another blank document. You're a disaster, and as such you should mark your return to active fandom not by finishing that existing chaptered fic, but by writing 30,000 words of another.</p>
<p>Hello, and welcome to another edition of disasterhawke-gets-carried-away.</p>
<p>This piece is an experiment - an experiment in what happens when the reader gets to work out the OC's secrets along with those around her. My hope is that, since you know a lot more about Thedas and its occupants than the people living in it do, you'll be able to get ahead of them in a satisfying way. Even if you don't, look, we all know there is never such thing as 'too much Cullenmance'.</p>
<p>If you're reading this 'live', good news: it's all finished and I'll be uploading one chapter each day. Enjoy!</p>
<p>Oh, and the Ballad you're about to read is not mine - it's a DAO lore text. Anything else I've made up around it other than its origins is not canon.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>the wind that stirs<br/></em>
  <em>their shallow graves<br/></em>
  <em>carries their song<br/></em>
  <em>across the sands</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>heed our words<br/></em>
  <em>hear our cry<br/></em>
  <em>the grey are sworn<br/></em>
  <em>in peace we lie</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>heed our words<br/></em>
  <em>hear our cry<br/></em>
  <em>our names recalled<br/></em>
  <em>we cannot die</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>when darkness comes<br/></em>
  <em>and swallows light</em><br/>
  <em>heed our words<br/></em>
  <em>and we shall rise</em>
</p>
<p>The Ballad of Ayesleigh, said to be written after the Battle of Ayesleigh, which ended the Fourth Blight.</p>
<p>
  <em>---</em>
</p>
<p>Wincing at the pain now shooting up her left forearm, Salina sat back in her chair with a loud creak. She did her best to not think about whether the creaking was her knees or the chair itself. The work in front of her was, at least, finally completed: two dozen requisition forms filled out and ready to be taken to Morris at the first opportunity. Which, she decided, was most definitely not now; the daylight had long since run out, and left her squinting at her own handwriting in the dim candlelight.</p>
<p>She made slow circles with her left hand, trying to shake the ache out of her wrist. It was no use. She’d thought she’d gotten used to injuries and pain, but there was something different about the relentless, unending nature of the aches desk work gave her. It seemed a hundred times worse than any stab wound from her former life.</p>
<p>There was little to be done about it now, at any rate. The Inquisitor wanted an infirmary, and an infirmary she would get - never mind that Salina was still trying to claw back the sleep she’d lost getting the plans drawn up. But with the orders made, the worst of her work was over, and she could move onto overseeing the building.</p>
<p>Giving up on the futile attempt to massage the ache out of her arm, Salina stood and began pulling on her boots and coat. As she rose, she smoothed down the material at her back, taking care to ensure the fur trim on the coat was covering the holes in the fabric - two of them, either side of the base of her spine. No need for the residents of Skyhold to see their architect packing daggers.</p>
<p>She checked the one in the sole of her left boot, and the one in the right’s lining, before opening the door and heading out of her room. Just to be certain.</p>
<p>The Great Hall was full of people, as it had been since the day her workers had finished the last of the repairs and taken the scaffolding down. It was difficult not to walk into the room and feel a sense of pride - albeit also distaste at the Inquisitor’s choice of furnishings. The woman was obsessed with dragons, and had asked for them to be festooned all over the hall that Salina and her team had spent weeks restoring. It was no wonder people said there was something going on between the Inquisitor and the Iron Bull. Anyone who’d ever set a foot in the Herald’s Rest knew he had a bigger hard on for dragons than he did for even - well, the Inquisitor.</p>
<p>It was - well, it was fucking weird, but Salina wasn’t the kind to say so. For a start, most things about the Inquisition were weird. Secondly, only the truly foolish commented on the sexual practices of a dwarf and a qunari and expected to walk out of the conversation with any teeth remaining. Especially given that there were <em>also </em>rumours about said qunari and the Inquisitor’s Tevinter mage.</p>
<p>Salina turned her gaze away from the enormous dragon carving that Lady Montilyet had insisted they find some way to affix to the wall (it had taken ten of Salina’s strongest workers and a rune that Dagna had claimed would “stick a mountain to the sky, if you needed it to”). Her eyes flickered instead to the usual table, where she could see three soldiers sat slightly apart from the others, their heads tucked close together.</p>
<p>It wasn’t abnormal in Skyhold for diverse groups to fraternise with each other, so no one had ever thought to say much about the lead architect’s tendency to ‘slum it’ with three of the Commander’s best soldiers. They were often out on postings, anyway, so Salina wasn’t about to waste the chance to take refuge with the only three people in the world she actually trusted.</p>
<p>“You’re late,” Dagan observed, as she sat down opposite him. Though human, he had the sort of stocky build that a dwarf would be proud of, easily taking up the space of two people. His ash brown hair was pulled into a knot at the top of his head, and he was beginning to show the start of an uneven beard.</p>
<p>“Long day,” Salina said, reaching for the bowl they’d already filled for her. “Thanks.”</p>
<p>To her right, Gheris snorted a laugh. “Poor dear,” she drawled, “is drawing pretty pictures for the nobility getting you down?”</p>
<p>Oliver threw a bread roll at the elf’s head, planting it squarely onto her nose. “Fuck off, knife ear,” he said, with a glare that looked as though it could wilt flowers - right up until it turned into a brilliant grin.</p>
<p>“Pissant.”</p>
<p>“Arse.”</p>
<p>“Don’t try to swear in Ferelden, Oli,” Dagan sighed, tearing open the discarded bread roll. “You sound ridiculous.”</p>
<p>Grinning wickedly, Oliver said something in Orlesian that sounded as dirty as it was incomprehensible. But then, everything he said in Orlesian sounded like that - especially when he smirked so widely that his entire face seemed to light up. He was aggressively attractive, with a flourish of tight black curls that tumbled wildly around his brown-skinned face, and seemed always to have the perfect amount of five o’clock shadow to set off his devastating jaw. The bastard.</p>
<p>Gheris, who looked tiny next to the two of them with her slim elven frame and shaved head, lifted her tankard. “Pretty sure I understood some of that. I’ll be surprised if ye can walk tomorrow, Dagan.”</p>
<p>With a great, heaving sigh, Dagan turned to Salina with a pained expression. “Please save me, my lady, by telling me about your long day. In detail. Loud enough to drown out these two.”</p>
<p>“I could tell you precisely what information has to be put into a requisition form to get Ser Morris to actually sign off on it,” Salina said, with a small smile. “I’m very, very familiar with it.”</p>
<p>“Ugh,” Gheris groaned, snatching half of the bread roll out of Dagan’s hands and dipping it in her stew. “How about don’t.”</p>
<p>“I would love to ‘ear your stories, ma choupette,” said Oliver. “It is not as if you ‘ave anyone else to tell them to.”</p>
<p>Salina snorted. “Damn me with faint praise, why don’t you. And don’t call me that ridiculous nickname.”</p>
<p>“It is the right and duty of a friend, mademoiselle,” he replied, with a mock dip of his head. “You ‘ave a long day ahead of you tomorrow, then?”</p>
<p>“In a manner of speaking,” Salina said, with a light shrug. “I’ll have to argue for some of the requisitions. I know for a fact we’ve not found enough lumber camps to make it up.”</p>
<p>Dagan nodded in understanding. “When we were out on the last assignment we saw a couple. Young wood, though. The old ones all got burned down in the fighting.”</p>
<p>“You were in the Hinterlands again?”</p>
<p>“Oui,” said Oliver, waving a finger around idly. “Doing a sweep for the Inquisitor. She ‘as cleared the last of the rifts there, but there was a demon or two about the place.”</p>
<p>“As if the place didn’t have enough fucking it up with the bloody mages and templars,” Gheris grumbled, stabbing a lump of meat a little too hard. As she worked the fork out of the wooden bowl, she added, “why’re you buildin’ outa wood, anyway?”</p>
<p>“No need to waste good stone on an internal building,” Salina said, polishing off the last of her stew with her usual speed. “Not with the walls Skyhold’s got.”</p>
<p>“If an army’s made it through the fortifications to the infirmary, the people in it’re all fucked anyway,” Dagan said, pushing his own bowl away. “Well, you let us know if we can give you a hand again.”</p>
<p>“Not that we will be able to,” Oliver added, with a gesture towards the high table. The Inquisitor was seated there, deep in conversation with the Commander and the Nightingale. “Rumour has it they’ve got us running off to the Western Approach next.”</p>
<p>Salina’s throat tightened. “That far?”</p>
<p>“Aye,” Gheris said, quietly. She planted one hand on the table, and another on Salina’s shoulder. “Gotta piss,” she added, unceremoniously - but as she swung herself out from the bench, she squeezed Salina’s shoulder.</p>
<p>“And I’ve got training plans to work on,” Dagan sighed.</p>
<p>Oliver raised an eyebrow. “Well, fuck you too, mon amour. You promised me an evening in the Rest, non?”</p>
<p>“I’ll take you,” Salina said, glancing into her empty tankard. “No point seeing Morris this late, anyway.”</p>
<p>She averted her eyes as Oliver leaned in to whisper something she definitely did not want to hear in Dagan’s ear, busying herself with stacking her bowl and tankard to hand to the servants. It’d taken some getting used to, being waited on again - not that they got the full service, but it was strange not to have to do any cooking or washing up. She tried to do whatever she could to be less of an ass about it, at least. She knew the names of the people, elves mostly, who came to clean her room, and she spoke to the head of the kitchens regularly to make sure they didn’t need any modifications.</p>
<p>When they’d first moved into Skyhold, the cooks had told her they’d been running on a single oven for months. It was the first thing Salina had fixed when she’d been given her position. After that, the servants had begun to come to her with all manner of requests - all of them vital and none of them acknowledged by higher ups.</p>
<p>Frankly, without her, the Inquisition would be a fucking shit show. Of course, it seemed that there were dozens of people who fell into that category - Salina was equally certain things would collapse without Cabot, Morris, Dagna, Dennet, and more. Even now, with the organisation and its forces becoming strong enough to rival some of Ferelden’s bannorns. The Inquisitor’s army was known, and as time went on, it was becoming feared.</p>
<p>Salina hadn’t wanted to join the army with the others. Even coming to the Inquisition’s fortress in the first place was a ridiculous plan, especially given that one of its leaders was known to have practically come straight from the Hero of Ferelden’s bed, but they couldn’t do <em>nothing.</em></p>
<p>So Dagan, Gheris and Oliver had signed up for the Inquisition’s army, and Salina had been presented as the architect who’d hired them to escort her there. To her astonishment - a year later as it was - she had to concede that the ridiculous plan had, in fact, worked. And that all things considered, she was pretty good at her new job.</p>
<p>Still, she kept her left hand ready at her side as she and Oliver walked to the Herald’s Rest, eyes taking in the positions of all the people around her: their statue, their expressions, their weapons. The weak points in the structures around them. The high points. The hidden points.</p>
<p>Some habits, after all, died hard.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>“I just don’t see how we’re going to manage this much lumber,” Morris said, running a hand over his brow.</p>
<p>“We need -”</p>
<p>“Aye, I know you need it. You never ask for anything you don’t need. An’ an infirmary, that’s worth the work. But this much...you’re going to need to get someone higher up to sign off on it too.”</p>
<p>Salina sighed. “The Inquisitor personally requested this project,” she said, gritting her teeth not to snap at Morris. For once, he was actually being reasonable, and she wasn’t about to spoil that.</p>
<p>“Get her to put it in writing,” Morris said, handing back the requisition form, “and I’ll do it. But make sure she knows we’ll need more sources to get it done. She wants to sign off on that, she’s signing off on sending troops in, or going herself.”</p>
<p>“Lovely,” Salina said, unable to stop herself from grimacing.</p>
<p>Morris patted her on the shoulder, seemingly oblivious to the way she tensed from head to toe as he did. “You do this job long enough, you’ll learn to cover your ass too. Now be off, and I’ll get the rest of this seen to. Going to take a while to get Harritt’s people to work through this much.”</p>
<p>Salina nodded, actively working to relax her clenched jaw. “Thanks. You take care, Morris.”</p>
<p>“You too.”</p>
<p>The morning air was bracing when she stepped into it, and only served to make her limbs feel all the more tense. As she closed the door behind her, Salina clipped the forms back onto the board in her right hand, and began her least favourite pastime: searching Skyhold for the Inquisitor.</p>
<p>Finding the Inquisitor was one of two things. Either incredibly easy, because there was a large crowd of people gathered around gawking at Andraste’s chosen - or pretty much impossible, because the dwarf had done everything in her power to avoid it. Tracking people had never been in Salina’s skillset, and even if it was, there was no way she was going to let the people of Skyhold see her kneeling in the dirt to look at the shape of the footprints in the mud. Even if she were good enough to spot one dwarf amidst the hundreds of people that trecked through the courtyard, it wouldn’t be worth the risk.</p>
<p>No, the best way to find the Inquisitor was just to ask people until you found a clue.</p>
<p>Half an hour later, she’d been led on a merry dance through most of Skyhold, before finally spotting a head of shiny, dark brown hair. How the Inquisitor managed to get her hair so smooth, Salina had no idea. It was long enough to reach the woman’s waist, and most of the time she left it loose, fluttering behind her like a silk curtain as she vanished through the door to the smithy.</p>
<p>Salina was too slow to catch her on the stairs, and by the time she descended she found the Inquisitor deep in conversation with Dagna. Seggrit was nowhere to be seen, but then it was late in the morning, which usually meant he’d been up for a good eight hours already. The best smiths, he’d once told her, got up with the bakers and went to bed with the nobles. She wasn’t sure if he’d meant anything by it - at least, Seggrit didn’t seem the sort to be a soldier’s level of lewd.</p>
<p>“Good morning,” Salina said, as Dagna waved at her. “I don’t wish to interrupt, but I have a question for you, your worship, when you’ve a moment.”</p>
<p>The Inquisitor turned to look up at her, curiously. Supposedly, the Herald of Andraste came from the Carta, but Salina found it frankly impossible that anyone quite like the Inquisitor could have done. She was too...no, happy wasn’t the right word. No one would be happy in the Inquisitor’s position. She just somehow managed to find joy, of a sort, in almost everything.</p>
<p>“Hit me,” the Inquisitor said, before gesturing to Dagna. “I was just bothering the arcanist about some runes for Cole’s daggers. Little shit won’t ask for them himself.”</p>
<p>“I’ve put together the plans for the Infirmary, your worship, but Ser Morris is concerned about the amount of lumber it’s going to require. He asked me to check that you were certain before we continued.”</p>
<p>Scratching her head, the dwarf said, “Didn’t we just find another camp last week?”</p>
<p>“Yes, your worship, but an infirmary by its nature requires a good amount of space. You can squash soldiers’ bunks a foot apart and they won’t give a damn, but good luck explaining to a healer that they’ve got bugger all space to manoeuvre when trying to cut off a gangrenated limb.”</p>
<p>“Well,” the Inquisitor said, grinning, “that’s specific.”</p>
<p>It was, and it had summoned a mental image that Salina most certainly did <em>not </em>want to deal with right now - not this close to lunchtime. “There’s no way around it, your worship. We need this lumber, and we’ll need to find more camps to manage it.”</p>
<p>You could practically see the cogs turning in the Inquisitor’s mind. Salina had a suspicion that if the woman <em>had</em> been in the Carta, she’d had a hand in some kind of logistics. Smuggling, maybe. After a moment, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of scraps of paper.</p>
<p>“Ah,” the Inquisitor said, screwing her nose up at them. “Have you got some - thank you. Take this note...to Cullen. I’ll let you explain it, this is just to make sure he knows you’re not wasting his time.”</p>
<p>Salina nodded, and took the note as the Inquisitor finished writing. It said, rather dubiously: <em>please give the Architect what she needs to finish her work. Cheers. - MC. </em>She decided it was best not to mention the number of ways in which she could abuse such a note, and instead took it as the slightly terrifying indication that the Inquisitor trusted her pretty implicitly.</p>
<p>“Thank you, your worship.”</p>
<p>“You get me an idea of how long that’s going to take as soon as you’ve got one, mm?”</p>
<p>Salina nodded. “The lumber’s the sticking point, your worship. Once we’ve got that it’ll be a couple of weeks at most, weather permitting.”</p>
<p>“Good. There’s a lot of people who need it.”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>The Commander was not in his office, but that wasn’t particularly surprising. He seemed to be there only about half of the time; the other half he was out inspecting his troops. It was a pretty good ratio, in Salina’s opinion - impressive even, given the amount of paperwork his job clearly involved. Most of the commanders she’d known had either gone all in on delegating it, or had never been seen with the troops at all. Neither were particularly effective.</p>
<p>She had spent more time with the Commander than most of the Inquisitor’s inner circle, save the Inquisitor herself. Salina’s team was small, and often needed help from the soldiers when deliveries of materials arrived or similar. There had also been an exceptionally large number of building requests for the soldiers themselves, who when she’d arrived had been housed primarily in tents surrounding Skyhold.</p>
<p>Of course, save the Spymaster, Cullen Rutherford was also the member of the Inquisition that she <em>least</em> wanted to spend her time with. It wasn’t that he was unpleasant. On the contrary, he was probably the nicest Templar she’d ever met - and granted that wasn’t a particularly high bar, plus he was very insistent that he was a <em>former </em>Templar, but still. Much like Oliver, he was infuriatingly handsome, though unlike Oliver, he seemed to have absolutely no idea. Which was probably for the best for everyone, really.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, she had always done her best to keep their meetings as short as possible. And ideally with witnesses present.</p>
<p>On this particular occasion, he wasn’t with the soldiers, either - but a quick word with Barris had her pointed in the correct direction. Salina had been inside the Inquisition’s war room only a handful of times, and none of them had been for particularly long. She’d been in once to present herself upon arrival, then a few more whilst they were organising housing. She could count it on one hand. They had all been unpleasant, nervewracking visits, but ultimately uneventful.</p>
<p>They had certainly never involved stepping in to look at the face of the Champion of Kirkwall.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>“See, Varric,” Seeker Cassandra said, with a stern glare. “I told you that it was only a matter of time before your <em>friend</em> began attracting too much attention.”</p>
<p>“With respect, Seeker, we got him in here without anyone else seeing him. I think that’s pretty damn impressive. It’s not his fault you opened the door and let someone in.”</p>
<p>Salina had frozen. It was as if the bottom had dropped out of her stomach, and everything above that was attempting to evacuate her body by any means possible. Garrett Hawke was nothing like she imagined, but then she’d only seen pictures, most of them from decades before. His hair had gotten darker, much like hers had as she’d gone from being a teen to an adult, and was now so deep a brown it was almost black. There was a strange slash of warpaint across his nose, like blood, and his robes were ornamented with a surprising amount of metal for a mage’s outfit.</p>
<p>His eyes locked on hers, and he tilted his head. “I’m sure that our guest is more than capable of keeping her mouth shut. Miss...”</p>
<p>“I’m just the architect, Ser,” Salina said quickly, certain that even if he hadn’t recognised her face - had he seen pictures of her, too? - he would surely recognise her name. “I’m very sorry for the interruption.”</p>
<p>“It is hardly an interruption when you have been let in,” Leliana pointed out casually, still leant against the doorframe. At some point she had closed the door behind them, and was now smiling thinly. “I can assure you that our architect is quite trustworthy, Viscount.”</p>
<p>Hawke grimaced. “I’m not - well, good.”</p>
<p>Finally remembering how to breathe, at least for a moment, Salina took in the room around her. Aside from Cassandra, Leliana, Varric and Hawke, the room also contained the Commander, and a man in Warden armour that she didn’t recognise. He was tall, with a moustache that screamed Orlesian from across the room. They were all spread out, some sprawled in chairs, the meeting clearly a long one.</p>
<p>“What do you require?” Cassandra asked, looking at Salina with only mildly less venom than she had Varric.</p>
<p>“Oh. Yes. Excuse me.” Conscious of the number of eyes on her, Salina slipped across the room to where the Commander was stood beside the table. “Ser, this is from the Inquisitor. I’m to ask you for assistance in securing lumber for a building project.”</p>
<p>The Commander looked up in surprise, clearly having been focused on whatever was on the table before him. “Oh? I - Maker’s breath, this is a ridiculous note. Leliana, I thought you’d gotten her to stop writing these. Next thing you know she’ll sign the deeds to Skyhold over to Corypheus himself.”</p>
<p>“The Inquisitor is a force of nature, Commander,” Leliana said in the same light tone before. “As you well know. If she wishes to hand her trusted agents carte blanche to do as they desire, that is her will.”</p>
<p>“Well, I suppose we’d better - is something the matter?”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Something was most definitely the matter.</p>
<p>Salina did not know what she was looking at, exactly. That it was a battle plan she was absolutely certain, but that hardly narrowed it down, given the degree to which the Inquisition’s forces were spread. It showed a huge fortress, with turrets four or five floors high in places. It was set into mountains - or a desert, perhaps, given the map’s colouring - and they had placed a number of markers to indicate troop placements. Troop placements that were, in Salina’s opinion, absolutely guaranteed to get everyone involved killed.</p>
<p>“Is this to scale?” she found herself asking without thinking.</p>
<p>The Commander frowned, but nodded. “Yes.” He lifted himself from where he was leaning on the table, revealing several closer up sketches that had clearly been done by scouts.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Salina said, swallowing and feeling a tight lump in her throat. She had to say something. Didn’t she? But why would an architect know anything about -</p>
<p>“If there is something amiss in my scouts’ reports, I would gladly see them corrected,” Leliana said, making Salina jump with the sudden proximity of her presence. There was no one, no one in Skyhold who scared her more than the Left Hand of the Divine, and seeing her arm’s reach away turned that lump in Salina’s throat to fierce bile.</p>
<p>She had to tell them. It wasn’t too unreasonable. She was an architect. Architects were required to...know things about siege warfare.</p>
<p>“It’s just,” Salina said, pointing first to one of the close up sketches. “These crenels. They’re too wide to be just for archers. They’re only made that wide for ballistae. I’m not familiar with their range -” a lie “- but I know it’s considerable, and if those markers mean you’re moving people through there, I think there’s a chance they might be, ah. Killed horribly.”</p>
<p>This was also a lie. She was absolutely certain they would all die horribly.</p>
<p>There was a long and awkward pause where the people around her stared at the drawings, before the most definitely Orlesian man leaned in and said, “What else?”</p>
<p>Salina cleared her throat. “Well, assuming you breached the outer walls safely, if you were to make it into here - this courtyard? It’s surrounded by machicolations, you can see them on this sketch. They’re too thick to just be hoards, which means they’re designed to take much more intense munitions. Is this wall granite?”</p>
<p>“It is,” the Commander said, looking at her intently.</p>
<p>“Then it’s intended for exceptionally high heat. More tham boiling water or oil - we’re talking alchemical liquids, or if you’re particularly unlucky, a barrage of mages.”</p>
<p>“Oh dear,” said the Warden, pinching his nose.</p>
<p>As the room around her became increasingly tense, Salina found herself forgetting the lump in her throat. The presence of Leliana, and of Hawke, seemed to pale in comparison to the expressions on the faces around her.</p>
<p>“Is something the matter?” she found herself saying in an echo of Cullen’s previous question.</p>
<p>“This is Adamant Fortress,” the Commander said, golden eyes still locked on her. “It is occupied by the Grey Wardens.”</p>
<p>“Wardens,” Hawke added, with light nonchalance, “who have delightfully decided to sacrifice their own people to summon demons. And, as a result, are mostly mages or their demonic thralls. What was that you said about a barrage of magic?”</p>
<p>Fuck.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>She was still hungover.</p>
<p>That was the ridiculous thing about it all - the thing that made the least sense as she answered question after question from the Inquisition’s inner circle about the nature of siege warfare and the defences that Adamant Fortress evidently had - or in some cases, didn’t have. The knot in her throat wasn’t as strong, but the nausea was back, along with a piercing headache that was sat just behind her eyes.</p>
<p>It was dark by the time the room had thinned out, leaving Salina slumped in a chair at the side of the room, flicking through more of the sketches that had been taken by Leliana’s scouts. Adamant was in the Western Approach, on the edge of the range known as the Abyssal Reach. It was, she had to concede, an ideal place to have built a fortress of that size. The natural landscape provided ramparts aplenty, and if they were topped with sand as she suspected they would be, they’d be almost impossible to scale in any great number.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry to drag you into this,” a voice said, drawing her out of her thoughts. “I know it’s not exactly your area of expertise.”</p>
<p>Salina looked up to discover that the only people left in the room were her and the Commander, who was still leant against the table, staring at the maps there as if they would give up their answers if he only glared enough. They had come up with a far better plan, in her opinion - one that wasn’t going to get at least half of his people killed. And yet, he continued to glare at the maps.</p>
<p>“It is, in a manner of speaking,” Salina said, placing the sketches down in her lap. “Just from a different direction.”</p>
<p>The Commander chuckled, then sobered abruptly. “I fear to think of what might have happened had you not - I am - we are in your debt, Ser Architect.”</p>
<p>“Salina.”</p>
<p>“Hm?”</p>
<p>“It is my name, Commander. You are welcome to use it, if you like. It’s much less of a mouthful than ‘Ser Architect’, or worse, ‘Lady Architect’, which sounds more like a performer in the Blooming Rose than a title.”</p>
<p>He stiffened visibly, turning to look at her. “I hadn’t realised you were from Kirkwall.”</p>
<p>“I spent some time there,” Salina said quickly, before glancing back up at him. “And you’re skirting the point. Unless you prefer to be unflinchingly professional, though I can’t say I care for that given that the group of you just ordered this civilian into a warzone.”</p>
<p>“You will be guarded,” he said, looking aggrieved - as if the worst thing she had said was that he wouldn’t. “I’ll dedicate a squad to it. But Leliana is right, we can’t...with how badly this almost went, we need all the help we can find.”</p>
<p>Salina nodded. “I know. I won’t say I’m not terrified, but I know. And - well, I did come here to help.”</p>
<p>It was lucky that the other three had already been shipped out there. If any of them had remained to hear her tell them exactly what she’d agreed to do, they would have raced one another for the first punch. And she would have deserved every one.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” the Commander said, before adding, “Salina.”</p>
<p>She did her best to not think on the way his lip twitched up into a smirk, and instead held up one of the sketches she’d been particularly stuck upon. “These battlements, the highest ones. You’re going to want to know the weather patterns for the area...”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>The journey to the Western Approach was tense, and unexpectedly full of meetings. Though she was travelling in a group of support staff - cooks, healers and the like - Salina found herself called each night to the tent where the inner circle were planning the assault. The Inquisitor was not with them, nor Hawke, or the Warden who Salina had learned was called Stroud. Instead, the meetings were led mostly by Commander Cullen, who proved to be an expert on leading battles - if not siege warfare in particular.</p>
<p>She couldn’t blame him. Templars weren’t exactly trained in waging war - only protecting mages. Even most armies operated by having squads specifically trained in siege warfare, a mixture of artillery specialists and tacticians, rather than training the entire force in something so specialised. You were chosen for it, for the most part. Some ended up there because they were noble, and thus knew how to read and write far better than others. Some had an affinity with machinery. Some were simply strong enough to operate the weapons involved.</p>
<p>It was, however you ended up there, something that you simply fell into - much like Salina had found herself falling into the Inquisition’s greatest battle yet.</p>
<p>Dagan, Gheris and Oliver were nowhere to be seen. A week into the journey, Salina managed to find someone who knew them, who said that a handful of the troops had been sent to clear the way ahead. They wouldn’t be joining in the battle; she didn’t know whether to feel relieved or terrified. She had never been anywhere near a battle of this size without them. It would be like going in without any weapons, or armour.</p>
<p>The Inquisition had, in fact, given her armour - though no one had offered her weaponry. She supposed the squad that the Commander was apparently assigning her counted for that. The armour was soft leather, which was less than she was used to, but it would do. They weren’t expecting her to actually see combat, only be present and assist in the initial assault. Realistically, Salina suspected, she’d be there a lot longer - the fortress had several break points as you pushed through it, and they’d need her help for all of them.</p>
<p>Still, there was something that felt comforting about travelling with an army again. It just simultaneously made the knot in her throat so omnipresent that she couldn’t sleep at night. The heat didn’t help - it grew worse and worse the closer they got to the desert, and Salina had to be careful not to sweat so much on her sketches that they smudged into incomprehensible smears of charcoal.</p>
<p>The night before the assault, she found herself sitting on the edge of the camp, arms wrapped around her knees. She remembered this feeling - the feeling of anticipation. Of the certainty of death, but the uncertainty of whose it would be.</p>
<p>It felt like home.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Even in the chaos of the battle, time seemed to stand still. The soldiers around her were still fighting, but erratically - shouting back and forth at one another with a dozen variations on <em>what do we do</em> and <em>the captain</em><em>’s dead</em>, as if they hadn’t all seen the man get eviscerated by a demon.</p>
<p>If they kept on like this, they were all going to die.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” Salina said, ducking out of the way of a streak of fire. It put her close to the captain’s body, or what remained of it - his torso and the bow that was still clutched in his cold fingers. Closing her eyes, Salina took a deep breath, and wrapped her own hands around the bow. It was a war bow, heavier than she was used to, but it would do. His quiver had spilled onto the ground all around them, and many of the arrows had been stamped on in the melée, but it would do.</p>
<p>Standing, she yanked the bow out of his death grip and drew it, mud flying from her fingers as she plucked an arrow from the ground and nocked. The problem was not the demons: it was the mages controlling them. Drawing another breath, she cocked her wrist to loosen her fingers on the string - and fired.</p>
<p>“The three of you in front of me, hold ranks!” she shouted, her voice carrying as clear as it had ever done across a battlefield. A noble’s voice, her commander had called it. A strong voice. Salina fired another arrow, this one striking the mage not in the shoulder but the throat, cutting them off mid-cast. “The two on my right and left, close in on me. Everyone else, get behind me and ready to push through.”</p>
<p>Though several of them looked at her with stunned expressions, they also followed the orders without a word. Where their formation had begun to break up, it tightened, giving them the stability that they needed to get their footing in the battle. Relief flooded Salina’s body, that lump in her throat that bloomed like a bruise. She could get them out. They just had to listen to her.</p>
<p>“Listen up. We stay here, we die. We have to move, but we have to do it carefully. We need to - archers, take out that terror before it can jump! - we need to move as one unit, just like you trained. You can do this. We just have to get back down the stairs to the courtyard.”</p>
<p><em>And pray to the Maker that the Commander</em> <em>’s squad are still there - because if we get caught in the open, we’re all dead.</em></p>
<p>They began to move. It felt, as retreating always had, excruciatingly slow. You couldn’t just start marching. A few steps and someone would need to shield up - their flanks would need to respond, either taking out what had gone for them or covering whatever had opened up. But step, by step, by step, they began to make it. They were lucky she’d told the Commander to avoid windy days, or the stairs would’ve been littered with sand, making it even worse.</p>
<p>Every few steps, Salina would call to them. They had to remember they weren’t alone. That they hadn’t been abandoned. Losing hope was as good a way to die as a sword to the chest. She’d seen it happen. And all they had to go on where she was concerned were a few conversations with the Commander about how the assault was going, plus two minutes of shouting and a few good arrows.</p>
<p>“That’s it!” she called, as they made it halfway down the stairs. One of the archers slipped, and she stepped forward to catch her. “Hold! You, take out that mage. That’s it - all ready? We go again! Just a few more steps!”</p>
<p>By the time they got down into the path that led back to the courtyard, they had taken out the worst of the forces around them. The Wardens had all been killed, leaving only the shades and a scattering of larger demons - these were easy to keep pace with, as long as they didn’t surge forward, and even that was dealt with by the shield walls Salina had ordered them to erect around them.</p>
<p>“Ser! We’ve a gap ahead.”</p>
<p>Turning, Salina looked behind her, where the leading group had formed an arrow point to carve the way through. The soldier who had called was at its head, shield still raised in a defensive posture, though he and those around him looked poised to break into a sprint.</p>
<p>“Flanks, are we clear above?” Salina shouted, looking at the rear of the group herself, though she already knew it was clear.</p>
<p>“Ser!”</p>
<p>“Aye, Ser!”</p>
<p>“On me, Inquisition! We break for the courtyard. Whatever you do, <em>stay together</em>. Do not break formation, do you understand me?”</p>
<p>Her throat was already going hoarse. She felt the burn of it in her heart as well; something about the sensation dragged her back, back to the last time she’d held a retreat, back to - no. She couldn’t go there now. Swallowing, Salina turned and began to quick march with the soldiers around her, their flanks now closed in to defend both her and the other archers within. She had thrown the captain’s bow over herself, now that she was out of arrows, and as they ran she reached to pull the knives from her back.</p>
<p>The ache in her throat did not go away.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Where the sound of battle had dimmed as they marched through the fortress to the courtyard, now it surged onto them in full force. Salina ordered the squad to hold, taking in the fight before them. It did not take long for her to realise that the Inquisition forces in the courtyard were losing. They had been backed into a corner, and were dealing with an assault not only from in front of them, but from the battlements above.</p>
<p>“That’s the Commander!” one of the soldiers at the front called.</p>
<p>“I know,” Salina said, gritting her teeth. They were only just at the entrance to the courtyard, and the Wardens who were leading the assault had not spotted them. Mages - with their back to them. But if they went all in on those few, then the Inquisition would be obliterated by the forces above them. No, the only way they were saving the soldiers backed into the corner was to take out both threats at once.</p>
<p>“What do we do, Ser?”</p>
<p>Salina pointed at the archers. There were six of them, all so young it made the ache in her throat turn to nausea. Her soldiers had been young, too. <em>She</em> had been young. “You,” she said,  shoving the feeling away again, “split into two groups. When we push into the courtyard, you break for the battlements, as quickly and as quietly as you can. You have to take out the ones on the level above. Understand?”</p>
<p>“Splitting up?” one of them asked - an elf who looked down at their increasingly empty quiver.</p>
<p>“You can do this,” Salina said, clapping them on the shoulder. “There’s only a few of them up there and you’ll get them by surprise. I wager the six of you can take all of them down before they even know you’re there.”</p>
<p>“And the rest of us?”</p>
<p>“We take out the mages ahead. Get up close to them and they’re weak - they rely on their demons for protection. You, you and you - I want you to take the focus of that rage demon on the right. Don’t let it get near you, but keep its attention. Once the archers are in position, they’ll help you. The two of you, take the pack of shades on the left. The rest of you will be on the mages with me. Don’t try to hold formation. There’s no point when we’re coming from behind. Are you ready?”</p>
<p>A ripple of nods met her, though many of the expressions were subdued, even afraid.</p>
<p>“This won’t be easy,” Salina said, holding her dagger up. “But we can do it. On three.”</p>
<p>The soldiers she’d put at the front were good. It was a risk, sending them - but they looked to be the oldest, and she had no other way of knowing their experience. It paid out, as they kited the rage demon away so quickly that it was gone before she and the others had reached the mages. At their flank, the others drew the focus of the shades, whilst the archers disappeared from view. There was nothing she could do for them, now - either she’d sent them to die or she hadn’t.</p>
<p>As Salina charged, skidding forward on the damp stone and sending her blades plunging into the gaps between one mage’s armour, cries went up from the soldiers ahead of them. She pulled one dagger out and sliced it across the mage’s neck, grateful that the sound made was lost within the din of battle. One of the other soldiers appeared suddenly at her side as she let the body go, deflecting a bolt of lightning that would otherwise have charred her from head to toe.</p>
<p>One down. There were four more, and one had managed to move away from them. There was nothing more dangerous than a mage at range. Spinning, Salina flicked the blade of her knife between her fingertips and hurled it. Her aim was true, but the mage flinched at the last second, the blade landing in his shoulder instead of taking him out at the throat.</p>
<p>“Reinforcements! Hold steady!” cried a voice from within the squad they were here to rescue. It was familiar, but Salina had no time to think about how. She had three daggers left and that was fewer blades than problems.</p>
<p>Turning, she called, “I’ve got this one, deal with the rest! When they’re down, push through to the others!”</p>
<p>It was an order she had to give, but it cost her - by the time she turned back around, the mage had unleashed another bolt of white-hot lightning. This had to be the one who’d taken a shot at her before, Salina realised, seconds before the magic connected with her chest.</p>
<p>Just for a moment, her heart stopped. The world turned white, and her hair stood on end; her limbs filled with pins and needles that felt like a thousand tiny daggers. A scream, primal and furious, tore from Salina’s throat. She was not going to die - not here, and not like this. Not alone. Not to a mage, of all things.</p>
<p>She was lucky they hadn’t given her metal armour. Metal would’ve meant being dead. The leather was charred and emitting a smell that made her want to vomit, like the worst kind of burned hair, but it had taken some of the impact. Drawing breath felt arduous, but she forced herself to do it, one breath for every step she took as she urged her body to keep moving, keep going forward.</p>
<p>Another bolt flew her way, but this time she threw herself to the side, head over heels without breaking her sprint. She was close enough that even in the dark of night, she could see the mage’s eyes - wide, panicked. The man turned and began to run away, her dagger still glinting in his shoulder. It was a stupid move. A Warden should have known better.</p>
<p>Salina leapt onto his back, pulled the dagger from his shoulder and brought it down on the back of his neck. It was only when they crumpled to the ground that she realised she had never stopped screaming.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Above, the archers had managed to take out the second threat. The rage demon was still a problem, but being handled - and with the mages almost all dead, there were no more shades coming. As Salina rejoined the squad, drawing the captain’s bow and loading it from a quiver she’d found near the mage’s corpse, one of the shields fell back to her.</p>
<p>“They’re still pinned, but we can push to them now, Ser,” they said, a new determination gleaming in their expression. Lifting their shield, they gestured above. “Our archers are in place, and we’ve enough of us still.”</p>
<p>“Did we lose any?”</p>
<p>“Three wounded,” the veteran said, gesturing to the side. The soldiers who had been dealing with the shades were now guarding three of the squad, who looked to have suffered severe burns.</p>
<p>Salina nodded, though she noted that there were only four archers on the battlements above. Damnit. “We punch a hole. If we can drive a wedge formation through the demons, the Commander’s forces will be able to surround them with us.”</p>
<p>The soldier nodded, turning and relaying her orders to the others. They were holding together better than the rest of the squad, who looked exhausted, most of them struggling to hold their shields. But the group of them were still standing. And if they were still standing, they could do this.</p>
<p>As they gathered their shield wall, Salina took up position behind them and began to fire through. Arrow after arrow flew from her quiver, and the demons began to fall. The soldiers ahead of her were stumbling, staying upright now only through their formation. If too many of them lost their footing, the whole wall would crumble.</p>
<p>“Soldier!” Salina called, to the one who’d relayed her commands. “Do you know the Ballad of Ayesleigh?”</p>
<p>The soldier did not look over their shoulder, but she could see their shoulders shake with sudden laughter. “Aye, Ser!”</p>
<p>It was a stupid thing, to sing in a battle. No one could ever hear what key you were in, and so no one ever sung in the same. Often, she’d found, no one even sang the same verse at the same time. But there was something about singing. There’d always been something about singing. Salina wasn’t good at it - her sister had been better, Maker, she had been so much better - but she’d sung in the Chantry when she was young, and she’d sung in battle, and sometimes...</p>
<p>Well, there was a kind of magic in it.</p>
<p>Salina drew back her bow, and with the voice of the soldier joining her, began to sing. After a few lines, other voices began to join - first those either side of them, and then from beyond. By the time they’d reached the third verse, the verse that Salina remembered hearing a dying army sing, the whole of the Commander’s squad were singing with them.</p>
<p>“<em>Our names recalled, we cannot die!</em>”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p><em>Thud</em>.</p>
<p>Salina’s last arrow flew from her bow, impacting the shade that had been about to swing at the Commander’s back. He’d lunged forward to put his shield in front of a falling soldier, leaving his flank exposed. It was a stupid move. The sort of move she would’ve made. He’d likely have survived the blow, and so would she, but Gheris would’ve hit her about the head for doing it.</p>
<p>The shade crumpled, and the Commander’s golden eyes flashed as they locked upon her. He nodded, once, and the reality of what she’d done punched Salina in the chest.</p>
<p>Things went fuzzy after that. They took out the rest of the demons, the line her squad had carved enough for the joined forces to surround the now two groups that had previously pinned the Commander’s troops in the corner. Above, the archers - who had long since run out of arrows - hurled lumps of broken stone down to take out the last few.</p>
<p>There was a healer, at some point - an older man who tutted over the lightning marks that Salina had not had time to notice sprawling their way over her chest, a silvered splaying of branches. She flinched as he healed her, but let him do it all the same. Nearby, the soldier who’d sung with her was talking to the Commander, gesturing to her and to the distant place where their captain had died.</p>
<p>The battle at large ended as all battles did - slowly, then all at once. The Inquisitor returned, Hawke at her side, and no sign of the Warden who had been with them. Salina neither knew, nor cared, what had happened to the other Wardens who were in the fortress. A chill wind had begun to sweep through the open courtyard, and the pins and needles thrumming through her arms had not abated.</p>
<p>The Inquisition retreated from the fortress, leaving it at the mercy of the demons that remained.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Salina slept, knowing she had only because hours later, with dawn’s light well over the horizon, she awoke.</p>
<p>“I understand you’re well enough to move,” said a voice, low and tired. “The soldiers you saved will take you back to Skyhold as soon as you feel able.”</p>
<p>Pushing the heel of her hands into her eye sockets, Salina rubbed until the speaker came into vision - then flinched. Sitting nearby, arms rested on his knees, was Cullen Rutherford. He looked haggard, and worn, the way a commander ought to look the morning after a battle.</p>
<p>“Wh-” Salina croaked, pulling herself up. Her entire body ached, which wasn’t surprising. She hadn’t exactly kept herself in the best shape, since she’d been at Skyhold, and hurling herself into a battle had been monumentally stupid.</p>
<p>On a number of levels.</p>
<p>“Here,” Cullen said, handing her a waterskin.</p>
<p>She drank in small sips, knowing from experience - and hearing Dagan’s voice telling her in her mind - that if she gulped it down, all she’d end up with was vomit. All the time, Cullen sat there quietly, watching her.</p>
<p>This was it. The moment when he demanded an explanation. Ordered her to tell him why an architect, of all people, knew how to take a collapsing army and turn it into a rescue mission. The moment where she had to give herself up, give her team up. The moment she had feared since the day she’d walked into Skyhold.</p>
<p>“Commander, I -”</p>
<p>He shook his head, and she fell silent. “You don’t have to explain,” he said, his voice soft. He held his hand out for the waterskin, and took a drink from it. “I spoke to Recruit Avery. They said that if you hadn’t been there, they and their squad would all have died.”</p>
<p>Salina stared, her hand still extended where the waterskin had been. “I don’t understand,” she said, finding her voice still hoarse.</p>
<p>“If you had not come when you did,” continued Cullen, “everyone in the courtyard would also be dead.” He stood, dusting himself off and reattaching the waterskin at his hip. “You do not owe me an explanation. You do not owe any of us anything. We are the ones who owe you.”</p>
<p>He turned, and walked away, leaving Salina sitting in silence.</p>
<p>She’d thought she had understood Cullen Rutherford.</p>
<p>She had been wrong.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>The Inquisition’s army left the Western Approach with as much organisation and precision as they had entered it - only this time, a huge number of them were not returning.</p>
<p>Still feeling the effects of her lightning strike, and now without any armour at all, Salina was transported with the walking wounded. A group who, she noted, had been given now-Captain Avery and their squad as escort. If Salina had held any assumptions about this being a coincidence, it was dashed through their first day of travel, where each soldier took a turn walking alongside her. One by one, they quietly offered her their thanks, several of them insisting that they would honour the Commander’s request to keep her intervention private.</p>
<p>When they made camp, Avery came to sit with her, their face now visible without their helm. They were tall, with broad shoulders, and a sharp face that suggested they bore some elven blood within them, though they appeared otherwise human. Their skin was a warm reddish brown, and when they smiled their eyes gleamed like glittering onyx.</p>
<p>“You know,” they said, when the fires had burned low and it was long since time to go to sleep, “they sang the Ballad of Ayesleigh at Ostagar. When the traitor’s army abandoned the King.”</p>
<p>The tightness that flooded through Salina’s body began at the base of her spine, causing her to sit up and look at Avery intently. But there was no malice - no suspicion in their remark. They were just making conversation. They had to be.</p>
<p>Salina tilted her head to the side and did her best to look curious. “I didn’t know. My tutors taught me it when I was young, when we were learning history.”</p>
<p>“Aye,” Avery nodded, “I wager most of us did, growing up in Ferelden. Whereabouts?”</p>
<p>Chuckling, Salina replied, “The Free Marches, actually. But we had family in Ferelden. I moved near to them when I was young.”</p>
<p>“Never able to tell a Marcher accent. Well, some of them. You’ll know a Starkhaven when you hear them, at least.”</p>
<p>“From the accent, or the stench of fish?”</p>
<p>Avery snorted. “Good point.”</p>
<p>“What about you?”</p>
<p>“Redcliffe, mostly. Joined up with King Alistair’s army a few years back, then came to the Inquisition. Seems like the right thing to have done, given...”</p>
<p>They gestured emptily, and Salina nodded. She knew that feeling - the feeling of having joined up to fight in a war, and ending up fighting the collapse of reality instead. They fell silent again, but even after Avery took themselves to bed and encouraged her to get some rest too, Salina found herself thinking about home - and wondering what it was.</p>
<p>She wondered, too, if her mother was still alive. If her father was. If any of her siblings were.</p>
<p>After a while, she downed the entire mug of whiskey one of the others had given her, and hoped it would stop her from wondering anything at all.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>“You’re a fucking idiot,” Gheris said, before pulling her into a hug so tight it made the lightning scar on Salina’s chest ache.</p>
<p>By the time she’d returned to Skyhold, the three of them had long since made it back too, though with much less of a story to tell. They’d known the bones of what had happened at Adamant, since most of the army - moving faster than the walking wounded - had gotten back a few days ahead of them. But as Salina had told them what had happened in the battle, the three of them had sat, silently, staring at her.</p>
<p>Dagan and Oliver said nothing, but reached their arms around her and Gheris, pulling them into a silent hold.</p>
<p>The knot in her throat came back - and this time, it shattered.</p>
<p>Shuddering, Salina buried her face in Gheris’s neck and held on tightly, the shaking of her body absorbed into Oliver’s torso where he sat behind her. The tears that spilled from her eyes seemed as hot as the burning in her throat, as sputtering as her breaths, as vicious as the pain that throbbed in her chest.</p>
<p>“We’ve got you,” Dagan said, softly, stroking her head. “We’ve got you, Captain.”</p>
<p>He would never have called her it if they were anywhere else - but they were in her room, the four of them crammed tight onto her small bed, and there had been no secrets between them since the day they’d heard the King’s army sing themselves to death.</p>
<p>Did they have a burning lump in their throats that wouldn’t go away, too?</p>
<p>“Do not ever do something like that again, you ‘ear,” Oliver mumbled, with a sigh. “Not without us there.”</p>
<p>Salina nodded, and let them hold her until the tears stopped, and the lump in her throat was now dull and inert once more - until they peeled away from her, one by one. With soft, light touches, Gheris brushed Salina’s hair out of her face and wiped her cheeks clean, until the only sign of her tears was the redness of her nose and the glassy look in her eyes.</p>
<p>They sat there quietly, passing the bottle of ale Oliver had smuggled in back and forth, until Dagan finally spoke up.</p>
<p>“Do we need to do anything?”</p>
<p>The image of a man hunched over, looking at her with knowing golden eyes, flashed into Salina’s mind - and she shook her head. “No. We’re good. But - there’s a soldier, Avery. They just got made captain of their squad.”</p>
<p>“Oui?”</p>
<p>“Just - look after them. If you can. Their whole squad. They’re the ones I - helped.”</p>
<p>Gheris snorted. “You can’t just adopt an entire squad of soldiers, you twit.”</p>
<p>“Oh?” Salina said, looking up at the elf and smirking. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”</p>
<p>This time, Gheris punched her on the arm instead of hugging her. It made the last of the lump in her throat fade into nothingness.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. We Cannot Die</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>As they return from Adamant, Salina discovers that when you give up one secret, the others just start to tumble out of you. And there's no stopping these floodgates now.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you everyone for the lovely reception to chapter 1! Here is chapter 2, and if you're reading this 'live' the final chapter will be up tomorrow.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">Normality returned the way it generally did - oppressively and suddenly. Salina was given a week to recover from her injuries, and then hurled headfirst into preparing for the Templar tower that the Inquisitor wanted built, the infirmary now being fully underway. She didn’t ask who had sorted out the lumber; she had enough suspicions to answer that herself.</p>
<p class="western">This time, it wasn’t about erecting a structure, at least - and much more about stripping out the worst of the debris from whatever old furniture and beams had been there before. She’d need help from the soldiers to get some of the biggest bits of lumber out - her team was only so big - but it wouldn’t be too much.</p>
<p class="western">Either way, it left her with the need, only two weeks after Adamant, to go and see the Commander again.</p>
<p class="western">They had passed each other once or twice, since returning. Every time, Cullen had acknowledged her with a nod, and continued about his day. Neither of them had ever said a word, and yet it felt as if something had shifted. Changed. Salina had never trusted many people, and yet, somehow, he had crept his way in.</p>
<p class="western">Forced it, really, by not asking her to reveal a past that would cause a good portion of the Inquisition to never look at her the same way again - the Commander included.</p>
<p class="western"><em>Now where did that come from?</em> she wondered, halfway between Morris’s office and the Commander’s tower. Morris had, as always, insisted that she get someone else to sign off on the things that she clearly needed and were clearly going to be allowed regardless. The man was obsessed with covering his own arse.</p>
<p class="western">It was late afternoon, and it was snowing - only lightly, but enough that not many people were out within Skyhold’s courtyard. Most were either huddled under bridges and battlements, or hidden in the great hall. Salina was grateful to be out. She had no desire to be crammed into a room with hundreds of people. She might’ve fought in an army, but that didn’t mean she <em>liked </em>being crushed by the bodies of those around her.</p>
<p class="western">She took the stairs to the battlements slowly, clipboard tucked under one arm, wondering if she could convince Gheris to give her a pair of her boots. The soldiers got much better boots than the civilians, and Gheris only wore them because it was regulation anyway - she’d never admit it, but she’d inherited the Dalish hatred for footwear, even as a city elf. She wouldn’t do badly to steal a coat or two, as well, though Gheris had much smaller shoulders. She’d be better off stealing Oliver’s coats.</p>
<p class="western">Salina was so busy thinking about clothing that she didn’t hear the sounds coming from the Commander’s office until she’d gotten right up to the building. The first crash, which sounded like glass shattering, made her freeze - the second, which sounded like a body impacting against something, made her lunge for the door handle. She yanked it open, almost dropping her clipboard, and threw herself into the room.</p>
<p class="western">“Inquisitor?” she gasped, when her eyes took in the sight before her. The dwarf was stood over Cullen’s body, a horrified look on her face. He was slumped against the desk, his body shaking so much it looked as if he was convulsing. His skin was sallow, and shiny with sweat, giving him the look of a man so far into his cups that he’d lost it entirely.</p>
<p class="western">The Inquisitor shook herself, then strode over to Salina in two quick steps and plucked her falling clipboard out of her arms. “Get Seeker Cassandra. Now. Don’t tell anyone but her. Don’t draw attention.”</p>
<p class="western">Salina swallowed, looking back at Cullen. “Yes, your worship,” she breathed, slipping back out of the room and closing the door behind her.</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">The Seeker was out by the stables when Salina found her, engaged in conversation with Warden Blackwall and the Stablemaster, Dennet. They were speaking in hushed tones, with turned backs that implied they weren’t to be interrupted. Salina ignored this, marching up to them with an intent she had been forced to conceal as she’d made her way through Skyhold searching.</p>
<p class="western">“Excuse me,” began Warden Blackwall, “but could -”</p>
<p class="western">“The Inquisitor needs you, Lady Cassandra,” Salina said, her voice switching habitually into one of command. “Now.”</p>
<p class="western">Cassandra frowned. “Of course. If you will just give me a moment, I will come.”</p>
<p class="western">“My apologies, Seeker, but she insisted it was urgent.” When Cassandra only stared at her, suspicion creeping into her gaze, Salina added, “She sent an order for you to come to the Commander’s office immediately.”</p>
<p class="western">Whether it was the fact that she was willing to interrupt and correct two of her superiors, or the slight emphasis on the Commander’s name, Salina wasn’t sure - but something changed in the Seeker’s expression. She nodded, made her apologies to the men before them, and took Salina by the arm in a quick march towards the Commander’s tower.</p>
<p class="western">When they were a good distance away from anyone, Cassandra let go of Salina’s arm, but kept their pace swift. “What has happened?”</p>
<p class="western">“I don’t know, Seeker,” Salina said, eyes darting over the courtyard to see if they were drawing any attention. The snow was working in their favour, thankfully. “I heard a crash from the Commander’s office, and ran in. He was on the ground shaking, like he was having some sort of fit.”</p>
<p class="western">Cassandra grimaced. “The Inquisitor is with him?”</p>
<p class="western">“Yes, my lady.”</p>
<p class="western">“How long ago was this?”</p>
<p class="western">Salina furrowed her brow as they ascended the steps, taking far less care than she had earlier. She had to keep one hand on the stone to her side to ensure she didn’t slip. “Five minutes at the most. It wasn’t hard to find you.”</p>
<p class="western">“Good. You will come in, but stay by the doors. If anyone attempts to enter, tell them that there is a private meeting and they are to come back later.”</p>
<p class="western">“Yes, my lady.”</p>
<p class="western">There was a hardness to Cassandra’s voice that stopped Salina from questioning her. Something was wrong, and the Seeker knew about it, and Salina had - of all things - managed to barge right into the middle of it. She pulled the door open for Cassandra as they reached the office, then closed it behind them and stayed there.</p>
<p class="western">“Inquisitor,” Cassandra said in acknowledgement, before running across the room and kneeling down beside the Commander. Salina knew she ought to look away, but she couldn’t - he was no longer shaking, but instead had his eyes screwed shut, as if in agony. When the Seeker spoke again, her voice was softer. “Cullen. Tell me what is happening.”</p>
<p class="western">Whatever Cullen said in return, Salina could not hear it. It struck her then that she was intruding on something very private, something so secret that clearly only a few people knew about it. Ashamed for having looked, for having been there at all, she turned away and focused her attention entirely on the doors as the Seeker had asked.</p>
<p class="western">It was hard to tell whether several minutes passed, or not many at all - either way, after some time, the Inquisitor and the Seeker helped Cullen to his feet and began to move him in the direction of the ladder that led towards his loft. This brought them near to where Salina was standing, leaving her awkwardly frozen, and unable to continue looking away.</p>
<p class="western">“Ah,” the Inquisitor said. “Look, Salina -”</p>
<p class="western">Cassandra sighed. “I will explain. The Commander is -”</p>
<p class="western">“I don’t need an explanation, Seeker.” The words left Salina’s mouth before she’d really thought about them, the strength of her conviction surprising her. She looked not at the Seeker, or at the Inquisitor, but at the man who was only holding himself up out of stubbornness and the support of the women either side. Cullen, in turn, looked right back. “You don’t need to worry. I won’t say anything.”</p>
<p class="western">“Cass,” the Inquisitor said, glancing up at the other woman, “are you sure...”</p>
<p class="western">“I am.”</p>
<p class="western">The voice that replied wasn’t Cassandra’s - it was far hoarser, but unmistakably clear. Cullen tore his eyes away from Salina and looked down at the ground, swallowing visibly.</p>
<p class="western">The Inquisitor looked sharply at her, eyes narrowing. “Alright, then.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">It took three days for Salina to admit that she needed to go back to Cullen’s office.</p>
<p class="western">The building wasn’t the problem. She’d been to see Avery the next day, and convinced them to lend her the troops who, to her embarrassment, had begun to secretly call themselves ‘Salina’s Shields’. Though she’d made an attempt to get them to stop, Avery had insisted that it was only fair that she let them carry on with it if she was going to have them carting rotten wood around for a week.</p>
<p class="western">No, the issue wasn’t the Templars’ tower. It was the most dangerous thing she’d carried round with her since the day she’d signed up for the army. Her thrice-damned cursed sense of bloody honour.</p>
<p class="western">...and a letter.</p>
<p class="western">There had not been many letters from her twin sister. There had been even fewer from their younger siblings, but then the Circles differed a great deal in how much freedom they allowed those within their towers. Salina had received, at best, one letter a year - each time on her birthday, written in the neat and careful handwriting she’d never been able to emulate.</p>
<p class="western">There were so few letters that Salina had all but memorised them, though for the most part she kept them stoically out of her mind. Now, they had flooded back in, reminding her that she knew the man who had been shuddering on the ground. She’d known his name since she was eighteen years old, the day the Quartermaster had handed her the second to last letter she’d ever get from her sister. It was the year she’d been made Captain; the year before the Blight took hold.</p>
<p class="western">
  <em>We’re not supposed to talk to the Templars, but it seems rude not to. After all, they are stuck here just like we are. We’re with them all day, and still most people don’t even know their names.</em>
</p>
<p class="western">Salina knocked on Cullen’s door.</p>
<p class="western">“Enter.”</p>
<p class="western">He was seated at his desk when she stepped in, feeling suddenly bereft of her clipboard. She’d left it in her room after drafting the latest set of plans; it had seemed irrelevant in the face of her sister’s words taking hold of her mind. It seemed even less relevant now that she was standing in front of Cullen’s desk, looking at a face she remembered caked in sweat and creased with pain.</p>
<p class="western">“What can I do for you, Salina?” he asked, sitting back in his chair. There was a pause as he spoke, the awkwardness of their last meeting creeping in.</p>
<p class="western">Salina looked past him, at the bookshelf, wondering what he kept on it. Histories? Warfare guides? She’d always wondered why her Commander had kept books - he was all the history he’d needed to carry around with himself. All of the tactical knowledge you could ever want. There was him, and his armour, and nothing more was necessary.</p>
<p class="western">Wincing, Salina looked at the ground, and searched for the right words. “Do I look familiar to you?”</p>
<p class="western">“I - what? I’m sorry, I don’t really understand what you’re asking. Would you...like to sit down?”</p>
<p class="western">Her eyes flickered up, checking to see if the concern in his voice was real. He had gotten up in his chair, and was stepping to the side. There was, she realised belatedly, only one chair in his office. In fact, his office was surprisingly stark, for a space that also managed to look homely.</p>
<p class="western">“You never seemed to recognise me,” Salina said, not moving from the spot. “I guess she and I didn’t look that much alike.”</p>
<p class="western">Cullen frowned. “Who?”</p>
<p class="western">“...my sister.”</p>
<p class="western">She couldn’t say her name, even now. How many years was it since she’d said her twin’s name aloud? They had been inseparable for fourteen years of their lives, fourteen years joined at the hip until a stray fire had started the destruction of their entire family. Once her sister had shown magic, then their brothers did too, and then their younger sister, until Salina was the only child left in the family who didn’t have an ounce of magic in her veins.</p>
<p class="western">“Salina,” Cullen said, stepping around the desk and leaning on it with one hand. “Are you alright?”</p>
<p class="western">She laughed - a hoarse, broken sound that she clapped both hands over her face to stop. “I think that ship sailed a long time ago, Commander.”</p>
<p class="western">“Cullen.”</p>
<p class="western">
  <em>It’s Cullen. Isn’t that a funny name? It sounds noble, but he says he isn’t. Lots of the Templars here are, second and third children who were sent to take vows since they couldn’t inherit. I don’t know why Cullen became a Templar. Maybe I’ll ask.</em>
</p>
<p class="western">“You said I didn’t owe you an explanation,” Salina said, folding her arms over her chest, and shaking off the urge to clutch at the lump in her throat. “But I think you deserve one.”</p>
<p class="western">He frowned, tilting his head back slightly as he considered her. “Why?”</p>
<p class="western">“Because most people would have demanded one.”</p>
<p class="western">“I suppose. But...Salina, you’ve already repaid me for that. Most people would have jumped at the chance to tell their friends about the Commander...” Cullen trailed off, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Most people would have said something.”</p>
<p class="western">“I guess we’re not most people,” Salina said, smiling despite herself.</p>
<p class="western">Cullen leaned more heavily against the desk, looking at her. “Then,” he said, slowly, “perhaps we should trade. If you have something you wish to say. It - would be fair.”</p>
<p class="western">That wasn’t what she’d come here for - she didn’t think. No, she’d come here because her sister’s voice wouldn’t stop screaming in her head. But she’d be lying if she didn’t want to know. If she hadn’t wondered. Was he sick? He’d looked sick, and it had seemed like more than just a passing illness, since the Seeker had clearly known.</p>
<p class="western">Salina held out her hand. “You have a deal,” she said, inclining her head towards him as he shook it. When he let go, she forced the words out of her before she could choke on them. “I had a twin sister. She was - in the Ferelden Circle.”</p>
<p class="western">Only the Maker knew what Cullen had thought she was going to say, but that clearly wasn’t it. His mouth dropped open, and his hand - halfway back to resting at his side - froze with the fingers slightly clenched. Almost inaudibly, he said, “Did she -”</p>
<p class="western">“She died before the Annulment,” Salina said, feeling her throat tighten. “Her best friend killed her. He was a blood mage. He tried to escape, and she wouldn’t help him, and he -”</p>
<p class="western">She would have been killed when the Annulment had been ordered anyway, but that seemed a moot point, since she’d never lived long enough to see the Circle descend into madness. Cullen had, though. Salina had always assumed it, but it became clear as she saw the realisation play out across his face.</p>
<p class="western">He said nothing at first, instead taking a step forward. The hand he had out was still extended, as if reaching for her; when he came close it flinched back. His eyes darted over every inch of her face, searching. It was no use. They hadn’t been identical twins, and with their different colouring had barely looked like siblings. In fact, they’d looked more like their younger siblings than they had like each other.</p>
<p class="western">“She wrote about you,” Salina said, when she was unable to bear the silence any longer. “I got letters from her once a year. I don’t know how she always managed to get them to me, but she did. She was determined to learn your name, even though none of the other Templars would tell her theirs.”</p>
<p class="western">“I remember.” Cullen’s voice was as quiet as hers had become, his eyes wide and alert. “I remember her.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">There were very few people in the world who remembered Solona Amell.</p>
<p class="western">Her best friend, the mage who had murdered her, had been executed by the future King and Queen of Ferelden when they’d discovered him in Redcliffe Castle. Most of the people who she had known in the Circle had died when it had fallen; those who hadn’t had been executed as part of the Rite of Annulment.</p>
<p class="western">Their mother had vanished not long after Solona had been taken, and after Salina had run away from their home in Kirkwall, her father had taken their other siblings and left too. It was in the years that had followed that the others had revealed their magic and been sent to the other Circles. Salina had no idea where their father was, or if he was alive at all.</p>
<p class="western">Technically, their few remaining family in Ferelden still remembered her, though they had only ever seen their cousins as very young children - before the scandal of one running off to marry a mage, and certainly before any of her children, the future Viscount of Kirkwall included, had been born.</p>
<p class="western">Once, Salina had received a letter from the one mage who had survived the Annulment - a woman named Wynne. Though Salina had already been informed of her sister’s death by the late First Enchanter, the Senior Enchanter had written to send her sadness at Solona’s death, her condolences, and her assurance that if there was anything she could do then she would be more than happy to.</p>
<p class="western">Salina had never written her back; the woman was, she’d later learned, now dead.</p>
<p class="western">And so, the first thing that Salina felt when Cullen confessed to remembering her sister was not sadness. It was not pain. It was a strange and overwhelming sense of relief; the knowledge that, at last, she was finally not alone. She felt the urge to hug the man, though both of them were standing awkwardly and trembling, weighed down by the memories that surrounded them.</p>
<p class="western">Instead, she just said, “Thank you.”</p>
<p class="western">Cullen nodded. “She was kind,” he said, after a moment. “She did not deserve to die as she did.”</p>
<p class="western">“No one does,” Salina said fiercely, before looking away in shame. “I moved to Ferelden to be near to her, when she was taken. It didn’t work out that way, of course. It’s not like the Circle takes visitors. But it was closer than being back in the Marches.”</p>
<p class="western">Silence stretched between them again, but this time it seemed less heavy. The ever-present burn in her throat was throbbing in time to her racing heartbeat, but Salina found she minded less. It felt like she was less alone. Having her team know her well enough to know about Solona helped - but they hadn’t actually known Solona herself. There was something different, being with someone who really knew her.</p>
<p class="western">Into the silence, Cullen said something unexpected. “I no longer take lyrium.”</p>
<p class="western">“I’m sorry?”</p>
<p class="western">“Templars take it; it is part of where their powers come from. It is addictive, and in the end, it - greater men than I have been lost to its madness. But I no longer take it. I have not since I left Kirkwall, after...everything.”</p>
<p class="western">Salina lifted her head and looked at him, searching for the sallow look she’d seen in him before. Yes, it was still there - though harder to see, now. “I had a young man in my squad once,” she said, carefully. It wasn't too much to say she'd been a soldier; that much had to be clear already. And she wanted, <em>needed, </em>to say somethin. “He drank too much. We all knew it. He knew it. He drank to get through every moment. One day, our Commander ordered him to stop.”</p>
<p class="western">“What happened to him?” Cullen asked, not looking at her.</p>
<p class="western">“He died,” Salina said. “Drinking would have killed him, eventually. Not drinking killed him faster. He had a fit so bad he choked on his own tongue.”</p>
<p class="western">The wince on Cullen’s face was so intense she found herself mirroring it. “I think I understand that,” he said softly.</p>
<p class="western">“You said it’s been years,” she said, idly prodding at a stack of papers on his desk. “Is it getting easier?”</p>
<p class="western">Cullen laughed, a low and dark chuckle. “Is that what it looked like?”</p>
<p class="western">“I guess not.”</p>
<p class="western">“I could ask you the same thing,” he said, folding his arms and perching on the edge of the desk.</p>
<p class="western">Salina snorted, then flicked her eyes up to meet his. “Is that what it looks like?” she asked, earning a smirk in reply that left her desperately trying not to think about - anything.</p>
<p class="western">There was a knock at the door, startling both of them. Cullen jumped to his feet, and Salina jumped away from his desk, as if ashamed to be caught there.</p>
<p class="western">“I should go,” she said, already halfway to the door. “I - thank you. If you could, ah, not...”</p>
<p class="western">“You’re safe with me,” Cullen said automatically - before pausing, turning bright red, and adding, “your secret. And - so is she.”</p>
<p class="western">Swallowing knives, Salina nodded again, adding another: “Thank you.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">“We have to tell her.”</p>
<p class="western">“Non. We cannot, if she knows then she will ‘ave some stupid idea to come with us, or after us. We should just go.”</p>
<p class="western">“She will tear your testicles out and shove them down your throat, you absolute twit.”</p>
<p class="western">The voices were quiet, and hushed, but Salina would know them anywhere. She’d come to find them because something had felt wrong in Skyhold - she’d emerged from a day’s work on the last of the tower preparations to find clusters of soldiers and Templars alike murmuring in low voices.</p>
<p class="western">None of them had noticed her, which wasn’t surprising. She hadn’t yet rounded the corner. But there was no doubting who they were, and there was no doubting that they were talking about her.</p>
<p class="western">“Go where?” she asked, stepping into view and looking at three horrified faces. Well - two horrified. Gheris just looked smug. Dropping her voice into Captain mode, Salina said, “Something I should know about?”</p>
<p class="western">All three tried to speak at once, but Gheris was loudest: “We’re being sent after the big guy.”</p>
<p class="western">“Gheris,” Dagan said, sighing and rubbing his face tiredly.</p>
<p class="western">“What? It’s not like it’s a secret. Give it ten minutes and the whole of Skyhold will know.”</p>
<p class="western">Oliver glared at the elf, but added, “We do not know much. It is in the Arbor Wilds, and there is a temple there, of some sort. The Empress ‘as sent troops to ‘elp, as well.”</p>
<p class="western">Quietly, Dagan added, “We’re going this afternoon. Everyone is.”</p>
<p class="western">The light filtering into the corridor was warm, but Salina felt as if there were no warmth left in the world. She didn’t need more details. There was a weight in their voices, a weight of knowledge, the weight that they’d all had the day before the battle at Ostagar. The three of them were now refusing to look at her, too, as if to do so would be...what? Too much? The last time?</p>
<p class="western">No.</p>
<p class="western">No, she wasn’t doing this.</p>
<p class="western">“Fine,” Salina said, taking a step backwards. “I’ll see you when you get back.”</p>
<p class="western">Their voices carried after her, but the words had no shape. They were just noise that bounced off the ringing in her head; the sound of battle mixed with voices raised in song. The pounding of her own heartbeat, thudding in her ears. She had risked everything to keep the three of them alive. To stay alive long enough to get back to them whenever they were separated. They were hers. Her people. They were everything.</p>
<p class="western">And she could hear in their voices that they believed, truly believed, that they were going to die.</p>
<p class="western">For hours, she walked through Skyhold, at a pace so swift that everyone parted to let her through. She had no destination. No purpose to her walking. But the relentless steps, and the fierce winds atop Skyhold’s battlements, felt right. Felt like all she could do. She just needed the time to pass, for them to get ready, for them to leave -</p>
<p class="western">To leave her.</p>
<p class="western">Salina lifted her hand and hammered on a door she hadn’t realised she was marching towards.</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">There was a pack lying next to Cullen’s desk, half open. A scattering of equipment and supplies lay around it, and as Salina stalked into the room he was crouched down, loading it piece by piece. He stood as she entered, looking somewhere between tired and concerned.</p>
<p class="western">“If it isn’t urgent, this is a bad time,” he said, before frowning deeply as she continued to walk towards him.</p>
<p class="western">Only when she reached him did Salina stop, realising that she was shaking from head to toe. That knot in her throat was no longer a knot; it was a huge, trailing ache that ran the breadth of the lightning scar that still bisected her upper torso. Where the silvery branches coiled around her throat, so did the pain, the ache, the sharp presence that had not gone since the day her sister died.</p>
<p class="western">If she had tried to speak, she did not think words would have come out. But it seemed a moot point; she had no idea, none at all, what she had come there to say.</p>
<p class="western">A gentle weight on the side of her arm pulled her attention back up. Cullen’s hand was resting there, and he was still frowning as he looked at her. “Salina?”</p>
<p class="western">“Take me with you.”</p>
<p class="western">“I - what?”</p>
<p class="western">“They’ll die. They’ll die without me.” <em>If we die, we die together. </em>She’d said that, after Ostagar. When the four of them had run. “I can’t let them die. I can’t let them die.”</p>
<p class="western">Cullen pressed another hand to her shoulder, holding her steady. “I will keep them safe,” he said, the way her father had said his prayers in Chantry services.</p>
<p class="western">“You can’t promise that,” Salina said, frozen but for her eyes, which darted around, not knowing where to rest. “You can’t.”</p>
<p class="western">“No,” Cullen said, his grip tightening for a moment, his breath coming out like a sigh. “I can’t.”</p>
<p class="western">“Then let me come with you. <em>Please.”</em></p>
<p class="western">He shook his head. “I do not know what will come after this,” he said quietly, still holding her in place even as she shook with tears. “But this is not the end. There is a future beyond this, and the Inquisition will need help to build that future.”</p>
<p class="western">“There are people here to do that. They don’t need me.” At her sides, Salina balled her hands into fists. “I’m a soldier, not a civilian. I joined the King's army to serve. I can help.”</p>
<p class="western">“Not anymore,” Cullen said, letting go and reaching for the next pile of supplies to add to his pack. There was a harshness in his voice now, one that she didn’t recognise. A kind of dismissal. It was nothing compared to what he said next. “Solona would want you to be safe.”</p>
<p class="western">Ice trickled down Salina’s spine, her nails making white half-moons in her palms. She swallowed, feeling only sharpness as the pain around her throat clenched. In a low, harsh whisper, she found herself spitting a reply.</p>
<p class="western">“You have no idea what my sister would have wanted.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">Salina carried herself from Cullen’s office with as little awareness as she had gone to it. The next thing she knew she was in her room; then she was shoving item after item into her own pack, going through it with rigorous precision. She had packed like this a hundred times, and could do it half-asleep, in the darkness, whilst the world was screaming.</p>
<p class="western">She didn’t know what Solona would have wanted, either.</p>
<p class="western">The girl that Salina had known before the fire was quiet, but passionate. Shy, but with a streak of humour and mischief that no one ever expected. She had loved freshly picked strawberries, and climbing trees, and folding down the pages of their mother’s books because she hated them dog-eared. She had loved history, and songs, and dancing, and a hundred other things -</p>
<p class="western">And Salina had no idea whether Solona would have continued to love them, if she had lived to grow as old as this.</p>
<p class="western">When Salina was younger she, too, had loved climbing trees. She had hated strawberries, though, unless they were so ripe that they had begun to soften. She’d never been good at dancing, couldn’t hold a tune well, and found books boring unless Solona was reading them to her. But those things had changed. She’d never stopped liking to climb, but she’d learned to dance - Oliver had taught her. And after Solona had died, she’d taken to collecting books, most of all on history.</p>
<p class="western">The girl that Salina had known would have told her to do what she thought was right. But that didn’t mean the woman she should have become would have. The woman she should have become would have lived as a prisoner in a Circle for years - would have been trapped in the war between mages and Templars. The woman she should have become would, in all likelihood, have died anyway - even if her Circle had never been Annulled.</p>
<p class="western">And so Salina was left, as she had been since she was nineteen years old, with nothing but herself.</p>
<p class="western">No.</p>
<p class="western">With nothing but her soldiers.</p>
<p class="western">So she packed, and she packed, and six hours after the army had left she pulled up her hood and followed them under the cover of darkness. Cullen couldn’t promise to keep them safe - but she could. She could. She always had, no matter what it had cost them, no matter what it would take.</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">The Arbor Wilds were not close to Skyhold. On several occasions, Salina was almost spotted - not by the bulk of the army, but by scouts as they went out to hunt, or soldiers who went to relieve themselves more privately. The first few days were the worst, because the mountains were sparse, but by the time they got into the forests it became easier.</p>
<p class="western">Salina hid in the trees, tying herself up there to sleep each night, and becoming increasingly exhausted by the cold and the growing lack of food. Hunting was too risky, even with the shortbow she’d stolen on her way out of Skyhold, and there was only so much she knew how to forage safely. That had never been her job. Her job had been telling her commander where best to punch holes in fortifications, then executing his strategy.</p>
<p class="western">She had no concept of how close they were, save recognising the forests as being the right area, but eventually the army in front of her began to slow. She was forced to halt herself, lest she go forward and be discovered - something that would be terrible on a number of levels, not least of which was that she had eschewed any attempt to dress like an architect, and instead was sporting studded leather that - much like the shortbow - she had stolen from the smithy on her way out.</p>
<p class="western">She managed seven hours watching the army before she got caught.</p>
<p class="western">The problem was that night fell, and she became complacent. She’d wanted to take a position where she could start to examine the army closer - to work out where the veterans were, and find her people within them. So she’d snuck around the side, carefully and quietly, and begun to look for a tree to climb up.</p>
<p class="western">Instead, she found a blade pressed up against her throat. It was sharp, but wasn’t pressed hard enough to break the skin, and the hand that gripped her left arm as she reached for her own dagger was wiry and strong. Warm breath rushed into her ear, a low chuckle laced with whispered words.</p>
<p class="western">“You’re a complete asshat, Captain.”</p>
<p class="western">“<em>Gheris?”</em></p>
<p class="western">“No, it’s your mother. Yes, it’s me. And you’re fucking lucky it is too, you twit. The fuck are you doing here?”</p>
<p class="western">Salina exhaled, sagging into Gheris’s arms and letting herself be pulled back down into the ferns. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let you all go without me again.”</p>
<p class="western">“Andraste’s tits,” Gheris said, before wrapping her other arm - dagger still gripped - around Salina and holding her tightly. “You get into one battle and suddenly you’re starved for it.”</p>
<p class="western">“I barely even fought anything,” Salina pointed out in a low grumble.</p>
<p class="western">Gheris smirked, her teeth just visible in the dim light. “You mean you found it easy. Well I’ve got news for you, Cap. There won’t be nothing easy about this place. You’ll get all the fun you want.”</p>
<p class="western">“Stopping you from dying is always fun,” she replied, but punctuated it with a kiss to Gheris’s shaved head. “Reckon you can get me in?”</p>
<p class="western">“Captain. Please. Who do you think I am, exactly? Dagan?”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">The Inquisition’s scouts wore hoods and wraps that half-covered their face. This was, Salina decided, the best thing about their otherwise ridiculous uniforms. With the right gear, she looked like any other scout in the army, and no one batted an eyelid when she and Gheris swanned back into the camp. To everyone else, it just looked like a normal patrol returning.</p>
<p class="western">“Time to behave, children,” Gheris pronounced, as she lifted the flap to a large tent and stepped in. “Mommy’s home.”</p>
<p class="western">A dozen bedrolls filled the room, but not all of them were occupied - many of the soldiers were still out and eating. Towards the middle of it, Dagan, Oliver and Avery were sat, along with two more soldiers that Salina recognised from Avery’s squad. She hesitated for a moment before moving closer.</p>
<p class="western">Dagan glanced over at Gheris, frowning. “What do you - Maker’s fucking arsehole.”</p>
<p class="western">“Is that as opposed to the Maker’s other arse'ole, mon cher? The one that ‘e reserves specifically for defecation? Salut, ma choupette. I wondered when you were going to get ‘ere.”</p>
<p class="western">“Really?” Salina remarked, settling herself down between Gheris and an amused looking Avery. “Am I that predictable?”</p>
<p class="western">“Oui,” Oliver pronounced, before nudging her in the knee with his boot. “Only when you are upset, of course.”</p>
<p class="western">Dagan rubbed at the side of his tankard. “You <em>did </em>refuse to say goodbye and then storm out.”</p>
<p class="western">“I can’t help but feel I’m missing something here,” Avery remarked, tilting their head. “Weren’t you supposed to be staying at Skyhold?”</p>
<p class="western">“Yep,” Gheris pronounced, holding out a hand towards Oliver for his hipflask. “As you can see, she’s great at doing what she’s told.”</p>
<p class="western">“I happen to be - don’t you dare, Olivier Dupont, I know exactly what you’re thinking. Hello, Avery.”</p>
<p class="western">Spotting Salina’s awkward glance at the other two, Avery gestured to each of them. “This is Della and Arias. They’re my seconds, now. Didn’t want to risk a repeat of Adamant, if anything were to happen to me.”</p>
<p class="western">Salina nodded, sparing them a brief smile. “I imagine it goes without saying,” she said, taking the hipflask as Gheris offered her it, “but I’m not here.”</p>
<p class="western">“On the contrary,” Avery said, returning her smile, “you’re the archer I’ve been looking for all week. Can’t make an effective wedge formation without a full back line, and we’re an odd number.”</p>
<p class="western">“You’re taking this in your stride, Avery,” noted Dagan.</p>
<p class="western">“Oh, don’t let my face fool you. I promise, I’m dancing a jig in my mind right now. With what we’re going into, we’ll need all the help we can get.”</p>
<p class="western">“What <em>are</em> we going into, exactly?”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">The others had laid out the battle plan for her extensively, but Salina decided - five minutes into the Inquisition’s charge - that it would have been better described as <em>a flaming shit show. </em>Not because the Inquisition’s armies weren’t organised. No, if they’d been anything but, they would’ve been decimated. What made it such a flaming shit show was the Orlesians.</p>
<p class="western">Her commander had explained it to her, once. They’d just finished a day’s march, and he’d called the officers into his tent for dinner. Some had retired thereafter, whilst others had begun a game of cards, and the commander’s attention had fallen entirely upon her alone. It was a deadly place to be, for many - but for Salina, it was a rare chance to question him about everything he’d ever learned.</p>
<p class="western">She loved siege warfare. It was the thing she’d shown a knack for, being nobly educated, a moderately talented artist, and having the eyesight to back it up. But even more than the satisfaction of the moment a ram made its first crack in a door, Salina loved tactics. The first time she’d been summoned to the commander’s rooms, she’d stolen one of his books. The second time, he’d smirked at her and handed her another, saying she’d learn nothing if she only listened to one point of view.</p>
<p class="western">That evening in the tent, she’d finally gotten him to tell her about the Battle of White River, and why it had gone so catastrophically wrong. He hadn’t been there, of course, but there was no one who could describe the shape and flow of a battle better than him. The curious thing was that, when she asked, he’d first declared it a resounding success.</p>
<p class="western">“But Ser,” Salina had said, foolishly, “Bann Eremon was killed. Arl Howe was gravely wounded, and only fifty soldiers survived out of a thousand. How in the Maker’s name is that a resounding success?”</p>
<p class="western">The commander had grinned in satisfaction. He was not a handsome man, at least not in the conventional sense - in fact, many called him ugly. But there was something intense about his face that left you unable to look away, all the moreso when his attention was focused upon you.</p>
<p class="western">“What is the Orlesian army famous for, Amell?”</p>
<p class="western">“Cavalry, Ser, and the Chevaliers.”</p>
<p class="western">A sharp nod. “Correct. So, you tell me. How did Angus’s forces hold against two regiments of chevaliers, outnumbered two to one, with nothing more than a wooden barricade to keep them at bay?”</p>
<p class="western">“I don’t know, Ser.”</p>
<p class="western">He’d leant forward in his seat, as if imparting some great secret, and said, “He made the chevaliers fight their greatest weakness.”</p>
<p class="western">“And what was that?”</p>
<p class="western">“Their own egos, of course.”</p>
<p class="western">Snippets of the conversation rang in Salina’s mind as she sent death glares at the Orlesians attached to Avery’s squad. There were half a dozen of them, and all of them appeared to be absolute twits. It wasn’t that they were incapable warriors - on the contrary, an Orlesian chevalier was one of the deadliest swordsmen you could come up against. One on one, she would have lost to them without fail.</p>
<p class="western">But it was as the commander had said - they were Orlesian, and as such, they were egotistical arseholes.</p>
<p class="western">She watched Avery trying desperately to manage them, to get them to fall in line. But the group of them were so convinced of their own battle prowess that they frequently ignored the Captain’s commands. The worst thing was that most of the time it went well, simply because the forces they were fighting were inferior. And the more it went well, the worse they became, their egos fed by the victory.</p>
<p class="western">“It would be terrible,” Gheris grumbled to her at one point, “if one of your arrows hit them in the back of the head.”</p>
<p class="western">Unfortunately, Salina agreed - just not with the sarcasm.</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">On the second day of battle, the Inquisitor passed Salina and the rest of Avery’s squad.</p>
<p class="western">She was accompanied by the Iron Bull, who charged a group of Red Templars with such reckless abandon that a number of the soldiers - some chevaliers included - had to jump out of the way. In his wake flew a rat-a-tat of crossbow bolts from Master Tethras’s bow, whilst Enchanter Vivienne sent a flurry of ice that froze a man from head to toe. When the Inquisitor stabbed him in the gut, he shattered, leaving her covered in flecks of frost.</p>
<p class="western">“You’re doing great, guys!” the Iron Bull called over his shoulder, giving the soldiers a thumbs up as he jogged back to the Inquisitor’s side, where another mage - it had to be a mage, with how little she was wearing - had appeared.</p>
<p class="western">The whole thing was over in a matter of moments, leaving the squad slightly lost for what to do now that all of their enemies had been decimated by four terrifyingly powerful people. Of course, the world provided a distraction a few moments later, in the form of cries for help from behind them. Avery ordered them to fall back, and soon they had joined up with another group of soldiers who were struggling to hold a river, even despite the Inquisitor’s assistance.</p>
<p class="western">When they got there, Avery began issuing orders, directing the infantry to support those on the ground and sending the archers up to high points. There was some sort of ruin around them - perhaps what had once been a bridge. Atop it, Salina could see a smattering of enemy forces, from Grey Wardens and their demons to more of the red templars.</p>
<p class="western">“Over here,” she said, calling to Arias and the rest of the archers - bar Oliver, who she knew preferred to stay at Dagan and Gheris’s side. Arias nodded and gestured for them to join her as she slipped through to one of the ruined walls.</p>
<p class="western">There were a pair of archers atop it, who began to fire on them as soon as they closed in. Ducking, Salina left the others to deal with them from afar and kicked off a rock, pulling herself up onto the wall with a grunt of effort. They noticed her, but too late - she already had her daggers out, and whilst she cut one’s bowstring the other was taken down from below. Spinning on the wet stones, Salina delivered a kick to the remaining archer’s chest, sending him flying to his death.</p>
<p class="western">A few moments later, when the rest of them had climbed up, Arias threw her the dead man’s quiver and grinned. “Nice footwork.”</p>
<p class="western">Nodding, Salina returned her attention to the ground, drawing her bow and beginning to do the hardest work an archer had to do - working out how to hit her enemies without also killing her friends.</p>
<p class="western">It gave her a moment to properly examine the battlefield. The river was mostly shallow here, coming at most to one’s waist, but varied greatly as the ruins caused it to break up, then become deeper again. More than once she saw a soldier on either side lose their footing, tumbling not to a drowning death but nonetheless putting themselves at risk. She focused on defending those unfortunate souls - or, if it were a templar with a particular penchant for red, executing them on the ground before they could get back up.</p>
<p class="western">Out of the corner of her eye, she could see an Inquisition soldier holding off half a dozen Grey Wardens on his own. He was fighting with sword and shield, but falling into none of the traps that a novice shieldbearer would. He was not over-reliant upon his shield, and moved constantly, bringing it up to meet the enemy’s blows and arrows rather than simply holding it before him. He had a clear memory for the pitfalls of the battlefield, too; often pivoting carefully around the deeper patches of water, or in one case, drawing one of the Wardens into it.</p>
<p class="western">As the Warden stumbled, Salina let her arrow fly as she had with the others. The shieldbearer glanced up, gave a nod, and returned to his work, not losing a moment of focus. But when she reached for her next arrow, Salina’s fingers slipped. Even at this distance, with just a slight turn, just a tilt of his head, she found herself recognising Cullen Rutherford’s intent gaze.</p>
<p class="western">Her commander had told her once that she had the ability to be a good leader. She’d asked him for his advice - for how to stay on the right track as she grew, and learned. He’d said only one thing to her, that day: “Stay in the field, Amell. Never let someone else fight your battles for you.”</p>
<p class="western">Swallowing, and feeling the knot in her chest tighten, Salina drew an arrow without flinching and sent it flying, not stopping until she had picked off ever single person trying to get near the Templar her sister had thought good enough to have a name.</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">At some point, they began to win - then, enemy forces began flooding towards them from the other direction.</p>
<p class="western">The battle, which had slowed to a crawl, now raged again. Salina abandoned the wall, leaving the other archers there, and threw herself down into the battlefield. She’d been watching it for long enough to know where to avoid, or so she hoped. It was just a question of getting her body to do what her mind knew it could.</p>
<p class="western">Before long she had danced her way through to where Dagan and Oliver were fighting, holding back to back amidst a circle of demons. As she stabbed her way through a particularly gnarly despair demon - grateful for the fire runes embedded in the hilt of her left dagger - Salina slid in to find Gheris had joined them as well.</p>
<p class="western">“Thought you were going to stay hiding at the back forever,” Dagan called, swinging his greataxe over her head as she ducked.</p>
<p class="western">Gheris cackled, a joyous sound that drew the attention of a rage demon. “I told you, she’s too fancy to slum it with us in the muck, now,” she replied, before kicking the water up into the demon’s face. It hissed fiercely before an ice bolt from Oliver’s crossbow turned it into soot.</p>
<p class="western">“Something changed,” Salina growled, swinging to the side of a shade and stabbing both dagger into its amorphous mass. “What was it?”</p>
<p class="western">It took five hours for them to find out. Five hours during which they held the river, growing increasingly clustered together. Rutherford was letting Avery do much of the commanding, instead holding one front line himself as they kept things in order. Over time, they’d formed up around one of the biggest bits of wall - it offered both a place for the archers to fire from, and a defence that they could use to dive out of line of sight, or simply to back up against.</p>
<p class="western">Salina and her team were holding the side perpendicular to Cullen’s when the news came. A group on horseback, made up of the Spymaster’s people and Orlesians, charged through the demons with a determined look and a call that made absolutely no sense whatsoever:</p>
<p class="western">“The Inquisitor is at Skyhold.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">Getting news through to every regiment was one of the things that could make or break an army. If you didn’t carry news fast enough, formations collapsed, and tactical plans were consumed in flame. Which made the news from Harding, the scout who had dismounted and approached the Commander, as believable as it was ridiculous. Because it would take that many hours for even the fastest raven to make it here from Skyhold.</p>
<p class="western">“How?” Cullen demanded, stepping forward to hold his shield up as Harding fell into place behind him.</p>
<p class="western">“An Eluvian,” said the Spymaster herself, stepping out from behind the horses as the Orlesians increased the defensive formation. “There was one in the Temple. Morrigan was right; the network is exte-”</p>
<p class="western">Cullen cut the woman off, though whether it was because he already knew or because a bolt of fire slammed into the ruins above them wasn’t clear. “What are her orders?”</p>
<p class="western">“To retreat, of course. Get everyone to safety and return to Skyhold.”</p>
<p class="western">The knot in Salina’s throat returned like a vice, as if someone had reached through the Fade and gripped her soul by the neck. Retreat? Now? When they were spread out like this?</p>
<p class="western">“Fine,” Cullen was saying, gesturing for two of the other shields to hold the wall as he stepped back and turned to the gathered leaders. “We’ll need ravens to fly to -”</p>
<p class="western">“If you order them to retreat right now, you’ll get them all killed.”</p>
<p class="western">Salina was done hiding. She was done standing in the background and watching good people make bad decisions because they felt like they had no other options. If there was something Salina knew, more than anything else, it was how to hold a retreat without losing everyone.</p>
<p class="western">So when her voice came out, when she stepped forward and pulled back her hood - ignoring Dagan’s swearing - Salina spoke with the full force of her voice, staring Cullen down where he stood next to Leliana. The Spymaster’s eyes had locked on her at once, but Salina no longer cared. She wasn’t going to let hundreds of soldiers die just because she was scared of her own name.</p>
<p class="western">“And ‘ow do you know this?” sounded a voice from within the gathered Orlesian leaders. It wasn’t clear to her which of them had spoken, but they all began to nod in agreement, glaring at her.</p>
<p class="western">“Because I’ve held a retreat like this before,” Salina said, gesturing to where the army were still fighting. “And if you try it like this, Corypheus’s forces will tear us apart.”</p>
<p class="western">Stepping forward, the Orlesian revealed himself. Tall, masked, and eternally arrogant, Gaspard de Chalons was exactly as Salina had always heard him described - an arse. “Do not be ridiculous. No one ‘as ever ‘eld a retreat like this. Now be silent - let your betters speak.”</p>
<p class="western">Cullen interjected, “Gaspard...”</p>
<p class="western">“That’s <em>let your betters speak, your ladyship</em>,” Salina said icily, meeting his stare and entirely ignoring Cullen’s attempt to say anything. Stepping forward, she sheathed her daggers and folded her arms over her chest.</p>
<p class="western">Gaspard raised an eyebrow. “Then we ‘ave not ‘ad le plaisir, Lady...”</p>
<p class="western">“Amell. Captain Salina Amell, though I got stripped of that title, so I suppose Lady Amell will do.” She forced herself to continue, though she could feel dozens of eyes staring at her. “There <em>is</em> a retreat like this in history - at the start of the Fifth Blight. Teyrn Loghain’s army retreated with Darkspawn on all sides, through a narrow channel in the wilds by Ostagar. The army began spread out, just like this. We retreated without significant losses, which would not have happened if we had just yelled <em>retreat </em>and started running.”</p>
<p class="western">She felt, rather than saw, the three figures that stepped forward to flank her. Salina exhaled; it wasn’t just herself she had outed, with that speech. It was all of them. But they were here, and they were with her. Her squad - just as they always had been.</p>
<p class="western">“Well,” Leliana said, idly, “this is all very interesting, but there is a rather pressing matter...”</p>
<p class="western">Lifting her eyes, Salina looked at Cullen, who was staring at her with gritted teeth. She wondered, distantly, if she’d broken whatever trust it was that had begun to build between them. She wondered if she cared - but knew that she didn’t. When you became a captain, a real captain, you declared that the lives of your soldiers were worth more than your own.</p>
<p class="western">Her commander had told her that, once.</p>
<p class="western">“How did you do it?” Cullen said at last, breaking the stiff silence.</p>
<p class="western">Her next held breath rushed out. Raising her hand, Salina began to gesture as she spoke, eyes flickering over the meandering channel they could see weaving its way down to the Temple of Mythal. With each word, each instruction, Cullen nodded - pausing her sometimes to pass orders along, then returning to listen to her.</p>
<p class="western">By the time she was finished, Gaspard and Leliana had both gone to take orders to their own forces, and most of the other Inquisition captains had gone. Salina turned to go to the three figures she could still feel behind her - but stopped as a hand grabbed her tightly by the arm.</p>
<p class="western">For a moment, she thought Cullen was simply going to stare at her. She couldn’t make out his expression. So many of his expressions began with a knotted brow that it was impossible to tell which it was. When he spoke, though, she heard the hurt.</p>
<p class="western">“You said you joined the King’s army.”</p>
<p class="western">“I did,” Salina said, reaching up and forcefully pulling his hand from her arm, feeling the same rage filling her that had come out the day they’d learned Loghain Mac Tir was dead. “I just never said who I served under.”</p>
<p class="western">Cullen pulled his hand from hers, his expression changing to one she did recognise - confusion. “You left all those people to die.”</p>
<p class="western">“Yes,” Salina said, because there was nothing else to say. Behind her, she heard Oliver protest, only to be hushed by one of the others. “We did. Now. We’re the best soldiers you have, Commander. So you tell us where you need us, and we’ll be there.”<br/><br/>To his credit, the pause was not a long one.</p>
<p class="western">“Avery. Take Captain Amell and her squad. Make for the red templar camp and be sure it’s cleared before we pass through. The four of you, you still answer to Captain Avery. Understood?”</p>
<p class="western">Salina snapped her arm into a salute, feeling the others do the same, feeling something that had been trapped in her throat lodge back into place over her heart. Hope.</p>
<p class="western">“Yes, Ser.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">They lost people in the retreat. It had been inevitable, and the losses were small, but Salina felt it as keenly as if they were her own army. It was, after all, her commands that had been given - even if the responsibility didn’t wholly fall on her.</p>
<p class="western">It also had something to do with the fact that she had no idea what was going to happen now.</p>
<p class="western">She slept fitfully in the tent with the rest of Avery’s squad, all of whom had clapped her on the shoulder as they’d entered. Oliver had handed her an entire bottle of Orlesian red, pilfered from the Grand Duke’s personal stock - or so he claimed. She’d taken two swigs of the vile vinegar before foisting it upon Gheris and crawling under the blankets. It was only when she got up that she discovered that Dagan had gone without sleep, staying at the entrance to the tent to make damn sure that no one came in looking for the Lady Amell who had decided to yell at the Grand Duke of Orlais in front of the entire Inquisition.</p>
<p class="western">When dawn came, the army began to break camp slowly. They had marched far enough the previous evening to place themselves at a safe position, and with many wounded, there was no need - or capacity - to rush. Even with cycling out who had been holding the line, Salina could see that Avery’s squad were exhausted; breakfast was a silent affair, and soldiers were never silent.</p>
<p class="western">They had just begun to pack the tent up when Scout Harding appeared, looking apologetic as she slipped up to Avery. She murmured to them in a low whisper, but from the way her eyes darted frequently over in Salina’s direction, it was easy to work out that the message wasn’t wholly for the Captain.</p>
<p class="western">“Amell,” Avery said, gesturing. “Come here.”</p>
<p class="western">“Ser?”</p>
<p class="western">“The Commander and the Nightingale are riding ahead to meet the Inquisitor. The four of you are to go with them. You’ve fifteen minutes to pack.” They paused, and added more quietly, “They’re not taking anyone else. If you need it, we could insist. The Ambassador is with them too, and she’s been the target of assassins. It wouldn’t be unreasonable.”</p>
<p class="western">Glancing over her shoulder at where the others were yanking tent pegs out of the mud, Salina shook her head. “No. This is our mess, and we’ll clean it up. Thank you, Captain.”</p>
<p class="western">Avery nodded. “You can tell the Commander they’ll be along shortly, Lace,” they said, as Harding moved off. When she was gone, they added, “So you were lying about Ostagar, then?”</p>
<p class="western">“You gave me a fucking heart attack with that,” Salina grumbled. “I thought you’d recognised us somehow.”</p>
<p class="western">“They did sing it, though, didn’t they?”</p>
<p class="western">Salina looked up at Avery, taking in for a moment how young they were. Early twenties, perhaps. Not much more. “Yeah,” she said, softly. “They did.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">If there was one thing that Salina knew about the rest of her team, it was that they absolutely hated riding horses. Which was why she’d resigned herself to several long days of complaining the moment she’d been handed the reins of a beautiful Ferelden chestnut.</p>
<p class="western">Oliver had been conscripted from a defeated Orlesian force during the Ferelden Rebellion, and had served in a cavalry regiment before. He hated the stench; said it reminded him too much of ‘home’. Gheris’s only experience of horses before the army had been getting mud kicked in her face by humans who thought it funny to cover the knife-ear in mud, and Dagan - well, Dagan just wasn’t very good with animals.</p>
<p class="western">For her part, Salina was horse neutral. Still, the presence of three people whose grumbling was like a force of nature kept her distracted for the first few hours of the trip, leaving her unable to focus on the discussions being held between the Inquisitor’s inner circle. The four of them were arranged in a square around Josephine, Leliana and Cullen, the three of them in turn alternating between riding alongside one another and slipping into more of a triangle as conversation lulled.</p>
<p class="western">It was why Leliana’s statement, thrown casually into one such lull, caught her wholly by surprise.</p>
<p class="western">“I must confess, Lady Amell, I’m surprised it took this long for you to say something. I had your inevitable reveal pegged months in advance.”</p>
<p class="western">Salina rolled her eyes to the heavens. “You knew, didn’t you.”</p>
<p class="western">“Of course. Do you think that I do not check the backgrounds of everyone who enters Skyhold?” Leliana was smiling, but it was an oddly cordial smile.</p>
<p class="western">“I suppose having easy access to the head of Ferelden’s military has its perks.”</p>
<p class="western">“Lady Amell!” Josephine gasped, looking horrified.</p>
<p class="western">Salina raised an eyebrow. “Well, I didn’t mean it that way, but don’t let me get in the way of your fantasies about Ferelden’s monarchy, Lady Montilyet.”</p>
<p class="western">The snickering from her team almost drowned out Cullen’s awkward cough, but did nothing to conceal Leliana’s delighted laughter. “No, of course. It is true, having access to my friends’ records is certainly a boon. Though I cannot say it was difficult to find - Teyrn Loghain kept quite extensive notes on all who deserted his army, you see.”</p>
<p class="western">As Salina tensed her hands abruptly around her horse’s rains, the mare jolted slightly. It took her several long moments to get the animal to calm down, by which time she had ended up riding level with the three advisers. Glancing over her shoulder, she found Cullen staring at her.</p>
<p class="western">“What?”</p>
<p class="western">“You deserted.”</p>
<p class="western">“I did tell you I’d lost my rank,” Salina said drily, before glancing away - and hoping that there would be no further questions. It was, of course, a fool’s errand. The Spymaster had known what she was doing, opening this particular bag of worms, and with this particular audience.</p>
<p class="western">It was Josephine who asked it, her voice so light with gentle curiosity that Salina found herself compelled to answer. “I did not think it common for people to desert the Hero of River Dane’s army. How did you?”</p>
<p class="western">“We just carved a pile of corpses on our way out,” Gheris said helpfully, before adding, “Your Ladyship.”</p>
<p class="western">“Please ignore her, Lady Montilyet,” Dagan said with a sigh.</p>
<p class="western">Behind him, Oliver coughed. “Well, it is not entirely wrong, non? We did kill those men Arl Howe sent...”</p>
<p class="western">“They were Howe’s men,” Salina said pointedly, “they don’t count. Ambassador, we deserted the way anyone deserts an army. We ran. At night, when everyone was asleep, and it was our watch. We took everyone who we knew felt the same way as we did, and we ran.”</p>
<p class="western">“Yep,” Gheris said, pausing to glare at her horse. “All four of us. That whole everyone.”</p>
<p class="western">Into the silence that followed, Cullen turned to Salina and asked, “Why?”</p>
<p class="western"><em>When I work that out, Commander, </em>Salina thought to herself, <em>I’ll let you know.</em></p>
<p class="western">Aloud, she just said, “I trusted him.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">When they stopped for the night, Salina directed the others to get the camp set up whilst she built the fire. It seemed instinctual not to ask any of the Inquisition’s leaders to wait upon themselves, but halfway through digging the firepit, a bundle of kindling and several thicker branches landed next to her.</p>
<p class="western">“Oh,” she said, glancing up at Leliana as she reached for a knife and began to strip the wet bark from some of the kindling. “Thanks.”</p>
<p class="western">“He was a very complicated man, I think.”</p>
<p class="western">Salina froze, shovel halfway back to the ground. “...the Teyrn?”</p>
<p class="western">“Mm. I was there when he died, you know. He never flinched, not in the slightest. Not even when it was clear Alistair was going to win. Not even when he conceded the duel.”</p>
<p class="western">She had a thousand questions, and she didn’t want to ask any of them - so she forced herself to ask the worst one.</p>
<p class="western">“Was it quick?”</p>
<p class="western">Holding out the stripped kindling, Leliana nodded. “Yes. A clean cut through the neck. He would not have felt anything.”</p>
<p class="western">Salina wrapped her fingers around the kindling and stared at it. “Why are you - why tell me about him?”</p>
<p class="western">“I served someone, once,” Leliana said, taking the branches and the axe Salina had placed nearby. She worked efficiently, skilfully, showing that she too had done this a hundred times. “I loved her, in the way you love a teacher who means everything to you. I did all that she asked and more. Trusted her implictly.”</p>
<p class="western">“What did she do?”</p>
<p class="western">Bringing the axe down hard on one of the branches, Leliana handed the resulting log over. “The same thing that Teyrn Loghain did to all of you. She made me do something that I did not think was right - and by the time I realised, it was already done.”</p>
<p class="western">Salina traced the rough edge of the log with the pad of her thumb, idly. To her surprise, she found herself responding. “We knew it was wrong. Straight away, we knew. Our whole squad. But if I’d let them show any dissent...”</p>
<p class="western">They all would have died. All of them. It was the only way she’d been able to keep them all safe.</p>
<p class="western">“You loved him, no?”</p>
<p class="western">“Not in the way people sometimes assumed,” Salina said, because there wasn’t a rumour she hadn’t heard about the commander and the teenage noble he’d made a captain. “But - yes.”</p>
<p class="western">Leliana smiled. It was a small, sad expression, one that looked simultaneously nonsensical and at once beautiful on the woman’s face. “I am sorry for your loss.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">At some point, Leliana had left. Salina realised this only by the time she’d finished mindlessly lighting the fire, her mind too full of surprise to make room for anything else.</p>
<p class="western">The day Teyrn Loghain had been executed, they’d gone to the nearest tavern and drunk so much that they’d ended up starting a bar fight and getting thrown out onto the street - where they’d promptly declared themselves on a tavern crawl, one so long that they’d ended up in the brothel at dawn, with Dagan and Oliver disappearing off to a room with more people than Salina had thought was realistic. Gheris had fallen asleep on the bar, and Salina had - well, she didn’t remember the woman’s name, but then she didn’t remember much else about that night, either.</p>
<p class="western">What she did remember was this: no one had ever said they were sorry. No one had ever called it a loss. The four of them hadn’t thought of it as grief.</p>
<p class="western">She was still caught in the knot in her throat when everyone else gathered around. They chattered politely over dinner - which was, blessedly, actual meat that Oliver had managed to go out and catch. Josephine did much of the loadbearing in the conversation, along with - to Salina’s astonishment - Gheris, who seemed to discover an unexpected number of tastes in common with the Ambassador. Most of the others chipped in now and then, though Cullen said little, and Salina even less.</p>
<p class="western">The first time she spoke, in fact, was to volunteer for the first watch. There was no way she’d be able to sleep - not now. But Dagan took one look at her and pointed out, “You look like shit, Captain.”</p>
<p class="western">“I’ll be fine.”</p>
<p class="western">“You’ll be useless. I’ll stay up with you.”</p>
<p class="western">From across the fire, Cullen interjected, “You’ve done enough getting us here. Rest - I will keep watch with Lady Amell.”</p>
<p class="western">“Alright,” Dagan said, after glancing at Salina. “Wake me up for the second, then.”</p>
<p class="western">It took a painfully long time for everyone to depart, and by the time they were gone Salina had run out of busywork. First there was stoking the fire, then scraping her boots, then using the river water they’d collected to wash the cooking pot. Throughout it all, Cullen simply sat there, staring at the fire.</p>
<p class="western">When she finally sat back opposite him, he said, “It’s been a while since I was dressed down in front of that many people. I did not take it well.”</p>
<p class="western">“What?” Salina said, flicking her head up, her eyebrows raising wildly. “You - you were fine. Polite, in fact, considering. I was an arse.”</p>
<p class="western">“You were correct,” Cullen said, stretching his legs out. “You seem to make a habit of that.”</p>
<p class="western">“I try.”</p>
<p class="western">He sighed. “I mean it. You saved a lot of people today. Just - not in front of the Grand Duke of Orlais next time, if you wouldn’t mind?”</p>
<p class="western">Despite herself, Salina laughed. “I’ll try to remember that next time you need me to save your sorry arse.” She paused then, and wrapped her arms around her knees. “And - sorry. Not that I did it, but. Well, it wasn’t good for you. And I’m sorry.”</p>
<p class="western">“My reputation has survived worse than a tongue lashing from a minor noble,” Cullen said drily, before running his hand over the back of his head. “That...sounded far less rude in my head.”</p>
<p class="western">“Minor is something of a compliment, really.”</p>
<p class="western">“Is it? Your family seemed renowned enough, in Kirkwall.”</p>
<p class="western">“Oh - that side is. Now, anyway. It sounds like my cousin’s done well for himself, considering. My side of the family is...well, it doesn’t really exist, now. Just me.”</p>
<p class="western">Cullen frowned. “I thought - forgive me, your sister always spoke of having multiple siblings. We spoke little, but it’s one of the things I remember.”</p>
<p class="western">“Well,” Salina said, trying not to think about the throb of pain at the very idea of Solona talking about her, “we had three younger siblings. Two brothers, a sister. They - they’re all mages. They were sent to different Circles to one another, because the Templars were worried about them being together.”</p>
<p class="western">“...please tell me none of them were in the Gallows.”</p>
<p class="western">Shaking her head, Salina said, “No, that was too close by. I don’t...I don’t actually know where they ended up. I’d already left for Ferelden by the time it happened. Our mother had vanished, and Father took the others away, then lost them to the Circles. I got a handful of letters, but nothing after I deserted. We - we’ve never really existed since. Publicly, that is.”</p>
<p class="western">“I envy your ability to disappear,” he said grimly, looking down at his hands. It was hard to see, but Salina suspected they were shaking. “And I am - grateful that you were willing to give it up.”</p>
<p class="western">To that, Salina said nothing.</p>
<p class="western">She wasn’t sure what she’d say if she tried.</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">They stayed in silence until a few hours had passed, when they both rose - out of the same habit, she suspected - to walk the perimeter of their camp before waking Dagan for the next watch. Cullen, she noticed, made little attempt to walk quietly, whereas she habitually picked her way carefully through the forest floor, avoiding the drier parts of the undergrowth.</p>
<p class="western">“About earlier. I - I wasn’t trying to apologise for taking your orders badly,” Cullen said suddenly, coming to a halt when they were furthest from the tents in their loop.</p>
<p class="western">Salina glanced up, studying his face in the dim light of the lantern she was holding. “Then what was it?”</p>
<p class="western">“I - know what it is like to follow orders you disagree with. To keep doing it out of...” He trailed off, throwing a hand up. “Maker knows. Obligation. Duty. The stubborn hope that you’re wrong, and everything is fine.”</p>
<p class="western">He’d barely gotten a few words in before Salina looked away. It was as if he’d taken the wound Leliana had made with her words and torn off the barely formed scab. She heard him continue - apologise for something in particular he’d said, but she wasn’t listening. She was just...tired. Tired of being understood. It seemed ridiculous; she’d longed for it, in a way, for so long. For more than just the four of them to understand.</p>
<p class="western">Now everyone knew, and everyone seemed to get it, and she wished...</p>
<p class="western">She wished she was alone, still.</p>
<p class="western">“Salina?”</p>
<p class="western">“You’re forgiven,” she said, softly. It didn’t matter what he was apologising for, really. She just wanted to sleep. Just wanted it to be over. “Come on. We should wake Dagan.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you so much for reading &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. And We Shall Rise</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Salina learns that the thing about the past is that you can't help but carry it into the future, good and bad - no matter how much you try to pretend it doesn't exist.</p>
<p>And that, in many ways, she's never changed at all.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And with this, we are done!</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for your lovely comments &amp; kudos - it's very much not needed but it absolutely makes my day. &lt;3 I'm hoping that now this is done, I'll be re-energised to go back to the Herbalist and continue working through that.</p>
<p>Well, you know, until I get distracted by another idea and it turns into an entire novella.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western"><a id="AS_Chapter_3" name="AS_Chapter_3"></a> Skyhold was strangely empty when they reached it. The advisers disappeared at once to the war room with the Inquisitor, and the others quickly went to eat, bathe, and get wildly drunk - not necessarily in that order. Salina made sure the horses were safely in Dennet’s care, then went to her room, ostensibly to sleep.</p>
<p class="western">Instead, she sketched.</p>
<p class="western">When she’d drawn things as a child, it had mostly been landscapes. Places around Kirkwall, or in it. Trees she and Solona had climbed. Then, after she’d joined up with the army, it became enemy defences. Maps. Battle plans. Troop movements. The landscapes that had been her focus now gave way to people, only the people were faceless - just a different kind of background.</p>
<p class="western">Now, it seemed that all she could draw was faces. She tried Solona’s, but it didn’t come out right. <br/>Then she tried their siblings; their parents; servants she remembered from when they were very young and still lived in the sort of place you called an estate, not a house. She drew Dagan, and Oliver, and Gheris.</p>
<p class="western">She drew the Teyrn, the way she’d remembered him best. Stood by a war table, one hand leant upon its edge, his armour gleaming in the firelight. Eyes lit up by fervour. By determination. He’d fought for everything, his whole life, never stopping no matter what he faced. No matter what he had to give up for his victory.</p>
<p class="western">She drew the faceless screams of the army at Ostagar. She wrote the words to the Ballad of Ayesleigh over the corpses of those who were trampled in the army’s attempt to escape. She’d only seen it from a distance, only heard it carried on the wind, but on the paper it seemed to come to life again. To draw her back in. To return the same spiralling knot of pain to her throat.</p>
<p class="western">When she finished, she threw the sketchbook across the room, sending it skittering over the desk. She followed it with one of her boot daggers, let out a frustrated huff of breath, and turned over to go to sleep.</p>
<p class="western">Though she’d always been able to sleep anywhere, no matter what happened around her, she turned fitfully for all of the night.</p>
<p class="western">In the days that passed, things did not return to normal. The Inquisition were gearing up for what was clearly the final battle, and it seemed to be the kind that an army would not help with. There was certainly no call for an architect. No one sought her for things, and she did nothing in return, instead wandering Skyhold at random, occasionally pausing only to make the sort of small repair that served more to keep her busy than anything else.</p>
<p class="western">After all of that, there was no final battle, which seemed strange to her. Though they had not been in Denerim at the end of the Fifth Blight, it had seemed the right way for a Blight to end - with death and destruction and dragons. When Corypheus died, only the Inquisitor and her companions were around to see it. The army watched from the ground, staring up at the broken earth in the sky.</p>
<p class="western">Victory spread through Skyhold like wildfire; as swiftly as despair and death had swept through Cailan’s army.</p>
<p class="western">Salina slipped away from the singing crowds and did not look back.</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">The others found her an hour in, and it hurt to know that she’d been missed. To know that she’d taken up their time, their focus, when they should be celebrating. Doing her best to smile, she told them that she was tired, and would celebrate another day. As she spoke, she rubbed at the top of her chest; they probably thought the lightning scar was paining her.</p>
<p class="western">It wasn’t, but she would let them believe that. It would probably be more comforting.</p>
<p class="western">Darkness had fallen by the time anyone found her again, seated as she was on one of Skyhold’s highest walls. The footsteps that approached her were steady, unencumbured by the drink that was likely flying around in the courtyards below, and accompanied by a heavy sigh.</p>
<p class="western">“I hate these things,” Cullen said, leaning against the parapet next to her. “All it does is make a mess that someone has to clean up in the morning.”</p>
<p class="western">“Are we talking about parties, or wars?”</p>
<p class="western">He chuckled. “I suppose we’ve a good deal of cleaning up to do yet, as far as the world is concerned. There are still rifts the Inquisitor has yet to get to.” Pausing, he asked, “What will you do now?”</p>
<p class="western">
  <em>Now that I’m no longer needed, you mean.</em>
</p>
<p class="western">Pulling herself to her feet and leaning her back against the wall, Salina spread her hands before her, gesturing widely to the rest of Skyhold. “I...have no idea.” Then she dropped her arms, letting one fall to her side whilst the other rested on the wall, the side of it brushing against his own. More quietly, she said, “I just keep wanting to run away.”</p>
<p class="western">“Salina,” Cullen said, resting his hand on her arm. “You are safe here. Surely you must know that. There have been others here who fought for Teyrn Loghain -”</p>
<p class="western">“One. One, and she was bullied out of the Inquisition years ago. Before I even got here.”</p>
<p class="western">“This is different. There are more of you, and all of you are liked. You realise that I had to practically tie Avery to the rest of the army to get them to stay, when we rode out from the Temple?”</p>
<p class="western">He was closer now, the hand on her arm holding tightly, as if willing her to look at him. When she did, she saw only a face creased with genuine, earnest care. Salina wondered if he had always been this person - if this was the person Solona had known - or if the years that had passed, and everything that had passed within them, had changed him.</p>
<p class="western">It was a stupid thing to wonder, really. Time changed everyone.</p>
<p class="western">“What if I don’t deserve to be safe?” she said softly, looking down at his hand.</p>
<p class="western">The next thing Salina knew, there was fur in her nose. Arms around her waist, a sigh in her ear, and a low, sad voice whispering, “Of course you deserve to - why would you not?”</p>
<p class="western">It was so long since someone had hugged her - someone that wasn’t Dagan, or Oliver, or Gheris. Ten years? More? She couldn’t remember. Her arms stayed trapped oddly between them, as if not knowing what to do, and her body was as tense as an iron rod. For a moment all she could think was: <em>fuck, my daggers are there, he’ll be able to tell - </em>until she remembered that he already knew. He already knew who she was.</p>
<p class="western">Like brittle shards of ice, the grip on her throat began to shatter. Salina’s arms shook as she threw them around Cullen’s shoulders, burying her face and her fragmented breaths wholly in the furs he wore. He had a woodsy smell, something between moss and herbs, something she couldn’t put her finger on - and when she held onto him he splayed a hand over the top of her back and pressed her against him even more tightly.</p>
<p class="western">“You are safe,” he said, the words muffled by her hair. “I promise you, Salina.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">There was still a part of her screaming <em>no, no, what are you doing, you have to get away, they’ll find you. </em>Only Salina no longer knew who ‘they’ were, or why it was so terrible, and that screaming part of her was drowned out by the scent of moss and safety.</p>
<p class="western">She had spent so long crawling away from everything. From her past. From the pain. From even thinking about either. From the fact that sometimes all she wanted to do was curl up in bed and draw. From the letters that still sat in a drawer in her desk, tied by the ribbon Solona had used in her hair when they were young.</p>
<p class="western">She didn’t know how to do anything else.</p>
<p class="western">So she stayed in Cullen’s arms until he began to shift, and looked up at him when he reached to smooth down her hair with a trembling hand, because it seemed easier to follow than to think. She traced the lines on his face with her eyes, the scar on his lip, the uneven shadow of stubble that lined his jaw and spread up to just below his cheeks. The dent between his brows seemed to live there perpetually, never quite softening.</p>
<p class="western">“I don’t know how to do this,” she found herself saying.</p>
<p class="western">He tilted his head. “Do what?”</p>
<p class="western">“Anything other than retreat.”</p>
<p class="western">He wasn’t that much taller than her. She realised this only when he shifted again, leaning his forehead against hers and sighing. “Sometimes I feel the same way. Though for me it was - I would stay trapped in the same place. Not moving backwards, but never going forwards either.”</p>
<p class="western">“That’s ridiculous,” Salina replied, trying not to think about the fact that her own hands had started to shake, now. “You’re the leader of the most powerful army in Thedas.”</p>
<p class="western">“Outwardly, yes. But I have never known a leader who was able to be just themselves. At all times. Save the Inquisitor, perhaps, but - lately I think even she is hiding something of herself.”</p>
<p class="western">“So how do you do it? How do you...keep going.”</p>
<p class="western">“Oh,” he said, almost casually, “I repeatedly do the wrong thing until eventually I get it right.”</p>
<p class="western">Salina laughed. It was a soft, reedy sound at first, but then Cullen was laughing as well, the two of them stumbling until she bumped against the wall behind them. She’d put a boot against the wall instinctively to hold herself up, and Cullen had shifted his stance, his right leg almost between hers and - and he was kissing her.</p>
<p class="western">The world had slowed down and sped up all at once. It was just one kiss before he pulled away, but he’d tensed his arms around her as he did it, as if they would become one person by pressing in tightly enough.</p>
<p class="western">He stayed there, curled around her, as he said in a breathless voice, “Please tell me that wasn’t a mistake.”</p>
<p class="western">“I,” Salina said, caught for a moment in the almost-smile he was directing her way. She swallowed. “I have no idea.”</p>
<p class="western">Laughing, Cullen kissed her again, this time leaning in so much that she was practically straddling his leg. “Not just me, then.”</p>
<p class="western">She could probably survive jumping off this wall. There were a couple of young trees below them, and they’d break her fall enough to make it doable. Then she’d be in the crowds of people, able to slip away, able to escape all of this and never be seen by anyone in the Inquisition ever again. It seemed like the right thing to do. He deserved better than her.</p>
<p class="western">Salina closed her eyes and took a deep breath.</p>
<p class="western">Maybe being safe meant knowing you could always run, even if you chose not to.</p>
<p class="western">“Well,” she said, running the pad of her thumb across his jaw, and feeling the weight of his gaze upon her. “If it wasn’t a mistake, you should probably keep doing it. Since even if it was, you’d just need to - what was it?”</p>
<p class="western">He smirked. “Do it over and over again until I get it right?”</p>
<p class="western">“Yeah,” Salina said, breathlessly. “That was it.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">The laughter was what confused her.</p>
<p class="western">You didn’t serve in an army without learning to take what you could get whenever you could get it, but every time she’d been with a person before it had always just been that - whatever. Whether it was in the tent with everyone else sleeping, trying desperately to be quiet, or round the back of the building where they’d trained, trying to work out how not to get covered in mud and inevitably failing.</p>
<p class="western">It had been good, most of the time; sufficient, the rest. But even in the best memories Salina had, there had never been laughter.</p>
<p class="western">Cullen laughed as he pulled her by the hand towards his office; as he kissed her again, even more intensely, the moment they were inside with the door closed. He chuckled darkly whenever his touch made her gasp, in a low and rumbling way that went straight between her legs and lodged itself there. When they had to negotiate their way clumsily up the ladder to his bedchamber, they were both laughing, until they’d tumbled into the bed that was lit by bright moonlight.</p>
<p class="western">She didn’t know what to make of it - this strange, joyous sound, that had never had a place here before. But she knew without a doubt that she didn’t want it to stop.</p>
<p class="western">So she threw herself into him, drawing laughter as she struggled to deal with his armour, earning wry chuckles when she pulled dagger after dagger out of her hidden pockets, each time muffling the laughter with kisses torn from fire. They were still laughing when his armour was scattered onto the ground and her hands were splayed over scars, when his hand slipped down her stomach to tuck just under her waistband.</p>
<p class="western">“You’re sure this is alright?” he asked, brushing his lips over her cheekbone. “I know it’s - I won’t be offended if...”</p>
<p class="western">Salina looked up at him, slowly and deliberately wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him in against her. She’d opened her mouth to say something sarcastic and biting, something to draw more laughter out of him, but there was a tightness in his eyes suddenly that made her pause.</p>
<p class="western">“Cullen?”</p>
<p class="western">He winced, then sighed, resting his head against her shoulder. “Maker’s breath. I was fine a minute ago.”</p>
<p class="western">As carefully as she’d put them there, Salina moved her legs away and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, holding his face against the lightning scar. She ran her fingers through his hair until the weight of his body sagged against her, as if the sigh that had escaped his lips now also escaped his body.</p>
<p class="western">“I’m sorry.”</p>
<p class="western">“You don’t have to explain.”</p>
<p class="western">“No, I -” He lifted himself, shifting until he was lying next to her, one hand rested on her side and the other on her scar. “I would like to. I just...”</p>
<p class="western">Salina leaned forward and kissed him again, gently. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve not been in a bed this comfortable in years.”</p>
<p class="western">It felt like she was smiling from the inside as he laughed, whatever spell had been over him for a moment seeming to break just a little. He pulled her closer to him and kissed her again, eyes tightly shut as if willing away pain.</p>
<p class="western">“This is difficult,” he said, turning his face into the pillow. “It should not be, but it is.”</p>
<p class="western">“At this point in my life, I’d be confused if things were easy. What, ah...”</p>
<p class="western">Salina trailed off. She had no idea what one did in this situation. There was clearly something going on, something she didn’t know about, as if he’d taken the shield he’d had around her and thrown it into her hands to use on him. Taking a breath, she did everything she could to push away the part of her that was screaming it was her fault.</p>
<p class="western">And, very calmly, asked him, “What can I do to make it easier?”</p>
<p class="western">“I don’t know,” Cullen all but snarled, his expression hidden by the combination of the pillow and her shoulder where he curled against it. When he spoke again, the anger was gone from his voice. “Just...let me. Please? Let me.”</p>
<p class="western">“Okay.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">To Salina, her body had always been a very hardened thing. It wasn’t surprising - she had, from the age of fourteen, trained it to be primarily a weapon. Its purpose had been to endure, to survive, and to do as she told it to when she needed it to. It had felt somehow separate from her, in the way her daggers did, something to be cared for only because it would otherwise fail her.</p>
<p class="western">It had never felt like something that ought to be admired. Definitely not something to be revered, the way Cullen now was, his hands tracing trails over her body that he followed with his mouth. It was as if he was cataloguing every scar, every mark, every part of her. It made no sense. It made even less sense that the further down her body he got, the more she felt drawn into that body, as if he were pulling her back into herself.</p>
<p class="western">By the time he slid his fingers into her and flicked his tongue against her, Salina had lost all concept of the rest of the room existing at all. Of the rest of Skyhold. She was stuck in place, fixed into a single point between her legs that became smaller and smaller and smaller until it burst into lightning through her entire body.</p>
<p class="western">She could taste herself on him when he moved up to kiss her, his mouth wet with it, her mind so numb in the smallness of the world that she let him lift her hands above her head and hold them there without complaint. His grip was strong, and she found herself pulling against it as he entered her, just to enjoy the force of his hands as they tightened.</p>
<p class="western">Cullen made no attempt to go slowly; if he had done she might just have killed him then and there. He buried his face into her neck, mouth tracing the end of the lightning scar that coiled around it, and thrust into her relentlessly until she could feel that same sensation of the world focusing between them. When he came gasping into her shoulder, he dropped one hand between them and pulled her over with him, thumb pressing hard into the centrepoint of the world.</p>
<p class="western">“I, ah,” he mumbled, minutes later, when they had finally managed to catch their breath. “Thank you.”</p>
<p class="western">Salina wasn’t sure what made her laugh more - the genuineness of his gratitude or the fact that he could go from pinning her forcefully to the bed in one moment to shy in the next. She pressed her lips to his head, then moved to clean the both of them up, before pulling the blankets back over them.</p>
<p class="western">“Shut up, you dolt,” she replied, burrowing into his side. “And go to sleep.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">He was gone when she woke up, along with all of his armour - but there were voices downstairs. Deciding it was probably best if she <em>wasn’t </em>found naked in Cullen’s bed, Salina stayed there in the smell of him, idly stretching her limbs as she waited for the sound of the door.</p>
<p class="western">Only when it had all gone quiet downstairs did she pull her clothing back on and make for the ladder, sliding down it the way she and Solona had done as children in the treehouse their father made.</p>
<p class="western">Cullen was seated behind his desk, though he wasn’t in his armour. He had hung it up nearby, and was dressed instead in a wide-necked shirt and dark trousers, the fur-lined cloak he always wore thrown over them. His hair was a mess, and he made a vague attempt to smooth it down as she approached.</p>
<p class="western">“Morning,” he said, with the same small, uncertain smile she could feel on her own face.</p>
<p class="western">“Hi.”</p>
<p class="western">“I’m not exactly, ah - familiar with the protocol on what we do now.”</p>
<p class="western">Salina chuckled. “Me neither.”</p>
<p class="western">“Well, at least we’re in this together, then,” he replied in a businesslike fashion, before reaching out to take her hand. More softly, he added, “That is, assuming...”</p>
<p class="western">Lacing her fingers through his, Salina leant down and kissed him. It seemed a reasonable answer, and a much easier one than trying to actually put words to any of the things she was feeling. She didn’t understand what they were herself; there was no way she’d manage to actually tell him. In response, he pulled her into his lap and tangled his other hand in her hair.</p>
<p class="western">“We can start with breakfast,” she said, after a moment. “And go from there.”</p>
<p class="western">They never made it to breakfast, and she’d never look at his desk in quite the same way again, but it was worth it to hear his laughter.</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western"><em>Going from there</em> turned out to be not really talking about it for the next several days. They were both drawn into the cleanup from the Inquisitor’s final battle, which had involved the Temple of Sacred Ashes being levitated into the sky. It had taken half a dozen experienced force mages to get the place back down, after which it was rigorously checked for any trace of Corypheus’s forces - or the Inquisitor’s companion Solas, who had vanished shortly after the battle.</p>
<p class="western">In the daytime, Salina’s team helped with the recovery and search. At night, she quietly made her way over the battlements to Cullen’s office, seeing few people as she went - save for the one time that the Nightingale was still in the rookery, and smiled knowingly at Salina as she passed. There was, evidently, no keeping secrets from the King and Queen’s mistress.</p>
<p class="western">A week into the cleanup, Salina crawled as normal into the bed to find Cullen staring up at the ceiling, one hand behind his head, the other rested on his stomach. The light from the rest of Skyhold was spilling into the room from the hole in the ceiling, illuminating him as he glared upwards.</p>
<p class="western">“What’d the ceiling do to you?” Salina asked, nuzzling herself against his side. “I’m really good at killing things, if you need it taken care of. Particularly buildings.”</p>
<p class="western">Sighing, Cullen lifted one arm around her and pulled her in close. “Do you know what happened when the Ferelden Circle fell?” he asked, voice thin and quiet.</p>
<p class="western">“As much as anyone does,” Salina replied, resting her hand over his heart and feeling the racing pulse. “Why?”</p>
<p class="western">“I was...separated from most of the Order. There were a few of us. The Senior Enchanter, Uldred, he - took us captive. Blood magic...I do not need to tell you that it can do terrible things. He twisted our minds, made us believe that we were being saved, only to hurt us. Over and over. I do not know how long it lasted. Each time we - woke up - one more of us was dead. Eventually I was the only one left.”</p>
<p class="western">A stray scrap of Solona’s letters slipped into Salina’s mind as she held onto Cullen. <em>I am scared, sometimes, of what I can do. We all are. It would be so easy to make a mistake, and have that mistake be something terrible.</em></p>
<p class="western">“When he couldn’t break me himself, Uldred shut me in a prison with some of his demons. They were never what they appeared to be. It couldn’t have been more than hours before Cousland came, but for me it felt like...weeks. Months. They would build me paradise and shatter it down and sometimes -”</p>
<p class="western">Salina had reached up to brush her hand against his face. When he paused, she felt tears sliding hot over her fingertips.</p>
<p class="western">“- sometimes, when good things happen, I wonder if I am still there.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">Two weeks after the fall of Corypheus, Ambassador Montilyet hosted a huge ball for the Inquisition and its allies. It was all that anyone could talk about - even Salina’s squad, who were normally about as interested in formal functions as a nug was in being given clothes to wear. Of course, most of them - Gheris and Avery especially - were primarily excited about the food. Oliver was excited about dressing up, however, and even Dagan had confessed himself keen to get to have a ‘real conversation’ with some of the chevaliers.</p>
<p class="western">When the evening came, Salina found herself staring obstinately at her wardrobe, wishing for the time when she’d not had to think about wearing anything other than a uniform.</p>
<p class="western">The knock on her door was a welcome reprieve, and she pulled it open to find a servant she recognised as the Inquisitor’s maid. The woman was holding a bundle, atop which rested a small note.</p>
<p class="western">“Thank you,” Salina said, as the woman handed her the package with a curtsey. She was gone before Salina could say anything more.</p>
<p class="western">Stepping back into her room, Salina placed the bundle down on the bed and flipped open the card, recognising the handwriting at once. She’d seen it on enough badly worded notes.</p>
<p class="western">
  <em>Amell,</em>
</p>
<p class="western">
  <em>We’ve not talked much, but when you run an Inquisition it turns out you don’t need to talk to a person to know them.</em>
</p>
<p class="western">
  <em>There’s a lot of people here in Skyhold who I owe everything to. I didn’t ask to be here, but they volunteered for it, and that’s a damn sight more noble than waking up with magic shit in your hand and sticking around because what the fuck else do you do.</em>
</p>
<p class="western">
  <em>Problem is, I don’t always know what to do to help. And there’s someone I’ve been trying to look after, but he’s a stubborn git and won’t listen to pretty much anyone. Only, a Nightingale tells me that might not be the case anymore.</em>
</p>
<p class="western">
  <em>Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. I know what it’s like to care about someone enough that you want to hide them from the world.</em>
</p>
<p class="western">
  <em>Just do me a favour, and wear this.</em>
</p>
<p class="western">
  <em>Malika Cadash</em>
</p>
<p class="western">When Salina put the note aside and unwrapped the paper, she found chainmail. Not a suit of it, but a yellow-gold jerkin with strips of beautiful, silver links that curved over the chest and down to the waist. The shoulders of the jerkin were padded, giving them a strong shape, before white silk sleeves ran down to silver and gold cuffs. There were trousers, tapered and tailored, that matched - their chainmail panels running down the sides, like military pinstripe.</p>
<p class="western">But the thing that gave her pause most of all was the coat.</p>
<p class="western">It was sleeveless, and silvery grey save for a stiff collar that matched the yellow-gold of the jerkin. The length of it ran long, and flared out, slits cut up so that the fabric could flow like water. It seemed weightless, the only thing giving it structure the collar and the piping that ran down the open front and arm holes, plus the hidden darts that pulled it in at the waist.</p>
<p class="western">And on the left breast, hand-embroidered with golden thread, was a wyvern. Tall and proud, it was presented side on, a heraldic image that Salina recognised almost as keenly as she did the red thread that it was laid upon. The red was her crest - her family’s crest, the interlinked image of birds meeting in an almost runic style.</p>
<p class="western">The yellow wyvern that had been placed over it, at the heart of the Amell heraldry, was the crest of Gwaren.</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">When Salina stepped into the great hall, those around her stopped and stared. This was, she suspected, the Inquisitor’s intent.</p>
<p class="western">She had been entirely unsurprised to find that the outfit fitted her perfectly, and even less surprised that when she wore it, she found herself standing taller. It had been pleasant to spot that the jerkin had small slits at the back that allowed her to keep her knife belts on underneath, though given the Inquisitor’s own skills, this wasn’t exactly surprising either.</p>
<p class="western">Emboldened, she’d taken her hair and pinned half of it up, not attempting to hide the chaotic wave to the dark brown mop that tumbled to just below her jaw. Beyond that, she’d made no attempt to change her face, instead leaving it as plain as she’d ever worn it. But dressed like this, it didn’t matter. She felt like a Queen, or a General.</p>
<p class="western">The first person to slip out of the crowd to greet her was Leliana, who Salina struggled to recognise at first. She was dressed in a ballgown of Chantry colouring, her head uncovered by any hood, and she was smiling wickedly.</p>
<p class="western">“The Inquisitor owes me ten sovereigns,” the Spymaster pronounced as she reached out to take Salina’s arm. “She was convinced that you’d never wear it.”</p>
<p class="western">“I suppose I ought to thank you.”</p>
<p class="western">Leliana patted her arm. “No, no, there’s no need for that. I’m about to do something terrible, you see - you’ll be falling over yourself to hate me in a moment.”</p>
<p class="western">“I’m sorry?”</p>
<p class="western">There was little time to protest, as Leliana pulled her through the dancing, drinking and feasting crowds with a vice grip and a brilliant smile. Salina did her best to nod her head politely to people as they passed, but they were moving so quickly she barely knew who she was nodding <em>to.</em></p>
<p class="western">Until they stepped out onto the space before the Inquisitor’s throne, where two humans were arranged, deep in conversation with the throne’s occupant.</p>
<p class="western">Salina did not need an introduction to recognise the King and Queen of Ferelden. It was impossible not to know what the two most famous Wardens in all of Thedas looked like, since their faces had been plastered over the country ever since they’d defeated the Archdemon and taken the throne. Not to mention that in the last days she’d spent in the Teyrn’s army, she had been called upon to hand out sketches of them to all of her soldiers, to help them identify the ‘traitors’.</p>
<p class="western">“Your majesties,” Leliana said, voice all devilish delight, “may I present our architect, Lady Salina Amell, formerly Siege Captain of the armies of Ferelden.”</p>
<p class="western">Alistair Theirin was not a tall man, but nor was he short - being about her own height. He wore the sort of traditional Ferelden outfit that she’d seen on many nobles, though it was far less ostentatious than the sort of thing King Cailan had worn. The armour was polished, his boots shining, but the presentation seemed at odds with the fact that he was casually sitting on the arm of the Inquisitor’s throne.</p>
<p class="western">“Oh!” he said, jumping up to his feet and bowing slightly. “Your ladyship.”</p>
<p class="western">The woman at his side, who had silver-white hair that was swept back into an untidy bun, laughed at him with the sort of maliciousness born of years of fondness. Elyssa Cousland was an imposing woman, whose face seemed to display every story that had ever been told about her: strong-jawed, sharp-eyed, she reminded Salina instantly of the Teyrn himself - a fact that it would probably be best not to mention, given that her husband had killed him at her order.</p>
<p class="western">“Salina,” Leliana said, dropping her arm and smiling with sparkling eyes, “may I present the King and Queen of Ferelden. I don’t believe you’ve ever met.”</p>
<p class="western">Turning to the grinning spymaster, and not really caring who heard her, Salina hissed, “Leliana. What are you doing, exactly?”</p>
<p class="western">“Sorry - excuse me - I don’t want to interrupt, but this is really my fault,” interjected King Theirin, waving a hand in a slightly ridiculous way. “Ah. Yes. Well, you see, I asked Leliana if it would be possible to meet you.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">It was at that moment that four figures, garbed in what had to be the most contrasting interpretation of formal wear Salina had ever seen, jumped out of the crowd and clustered around her in a defensive formation.</p>
<p class="western">“Anything you say to the Captain, you say to all of us,” pronounced Dagan sharply, his broad shoulders leaning protectively in front of Salina.</p>
<p class="western">“That Captain,” clarified Avery, lifting a slender finger to point at Salina from her other side. “Just to be clear.”</p>
<p class="western">Oliver nodded. “We will not ‘ave you stand ‘ere and insult ‘er. Not after all she ‘as done for us.”</p>
<p class="western">“Pillock,” Gheris added helpfully, flashing the King of Ferelden a dazzling and entirely insincere smile.</p>
<p class="western">Salina didn’t know what was worse - their ‘help’, or the fact that Oliver was wearing a hat with a bloody peacock feather coming out of it. Gently, she pushed Dagan and Avery back so that they were no longer covering her.</p>
<p class="western">“Your concern for Lady Amell is commendable,” said a new voice - low and steady, with a softness born more of immense calm than anything else. Queen Cousland stepped forward with a hand on her husband’s shoulder and smiled politely. “But misplaced. We are not here to offer insult. Really, quite the opposite.”</p>
<p class="western">“See,” said the Inquisitor, swinging finally to her feet, “a while back, when you all came here - not you, Avery - we checked you out. And what Leliana found was a bit worrying, so we had our friends here - we’re friends, right, Ali? Sure we’re friends - check into it a bit more.”</p>
<p class="western">Cousland raised an eyebrow. “Please do not call him that. I’ll never be able to stop him from breaching etiquette if you encourage him.”</p>
<p class="western">“Hey!”</p>
<p class="western">“She is right, you know,” Leliana added wryly.</p>
<p class="western">“She’s always right,” grumbled Alistair. “Look, we - we killed a lot of your friends.”</p>
<p class="western">Dagan glared. “I’m not sure how this is helping avoid insult. Your majesty.”</p>
<p class="western">“I’m getting there, I’m getting there. We killed a lot of your, ah, friends, and I killed your - anyway, the point is we think you did the right thing. In all of it. If you’d defied Loghain’s orders, he would’ve just killed you, and then what good would that have done.”</p>
<p class="western">“Not to mention,” added the Queen, “that the people you killed whilst exiting were extremely important to Rendon Howe.”</p>
<p class="western">There was a viciousness in the Queen’s words that Salina didn’t need to question. Everyone knew what Rendon Howe had done to the Couslands, and no one dared to speak about it - definitely not in front of the Queen herself.</p>
<p class="western">“That too,” Alistair said, before sighing. “Look, Leliana says you’re good people. All of you. And it takes some serious balls to walk into the army of some people who would’ve tried to kill you a few years back. So - so tell us what we can do. We can’t make up for it, I know that. But let us do something.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">The others were saying things, but Salina didn’t really hear them save to register the grumbling tones. She was too busy looking at the Inquisitor, then Leliana. Both of them nodded as she lifted her hand, resting it on the dual emblems that were emblazoned on her chest.</p>
<p class="western">She lifted her head and looked at the others. They had found a home, here in the Inquisition. In the days that had followed the defeat of Corypheus they’d done nothing but talk excitedly about cleaning up the rest of the world and finally restoring some order. About how good it felt to be part of something that mattered, again.</p>
<p class="western">But Salina hadn’t felt that. The only time she felt that was with them, or Cullen, and - and maybe she really did deserve a home, too.</p>
<p class="western">She’d had one, once. Maybe she could have it back, in a way.</p>
<p class="western">“Thank you, your majesty,” Salina said, her voice calling a halt to the protests from around her. “On behalf of my regiment, I accept your apology.”</p>
<p class="western">The King exhaled with relief, but at his side, the Queen wore a more calculating expression. “And?” she asked.</p>
<p class="western">Salina took a deep breath, then turned to face Elyssa Cousland. In the back of her mind sounded a small, young voice that she hadn’t heard in so long; her sister’s voice. <em>Don’t worry about me, Sally, </em>her first ever letter from the Circle had said. <em>You’ve always been the one that’s going to do great things.</em></p>
<p class="western">She’d written back to Solona and told her that she was ridiculous.</p>
<p class="western">Maybe Salina was a little bit ridiculous, too.</p>
<p class="western">With all the composure she could muster, she said, “Am I right that the Teyrnir of Gwaren was granted to you, not Regent Anora, upon your coronation?”</p>
<p class="western">“You are,” Cousland replied, with an approving nod. “And yes, I think that would do.”</p>
<p class="western">Alistair looked back and forth between them. “Hm? Oh! I get it. Yes, that sounds fair. There’s not really anyone else that can make a claim on it, anyway, since Anora’s too busy being our heir. And what use is being King if you can’t throw land at people willy nilly? Besides, it’ll piss Eamon off something rotten.”</p>
<p class="western">Maker’s breath. Cailan had never been this bad, and he had been an absolute git the few times Salina had met him in the officers’ mess.</p>
<p class="western">“Normally this is done in our own throne room, but I suppose it’s not against protocol to do it here,” the Queen said, her face softening slightly. “You’ll need to kneel for this, Lady Amell. And I will warn you - this will not be easy. There are those in Ferelden who look upon Loghain’s kin harshly.”</p>
<p class="western">A hand rested heavily on Salina’s shoulder, drawing her attention. “Go on, Captain,” Dagan said quietly. “We’ll be alright.”</p>
<p class="western">“I -”</p>
<p class="western">“You need this, ma choupette,” Oliver said, patting her on the back. “We said goodbye. You never ‘ave. Maybe you are not meant to.”</p>
<p class="western">Gheris said nothing, but turned Salina’s face to hers, and rested their foreheads together. It seemed to Salina to be as eloquent as anything anyone had ever said to her.</p>
<p class="western">So she turned, took a step forward, and kneeled before her King and Queen.</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">It wasn’t clear at what point the room at large became aware of what was going on. If Salina were to guess, she would have said it was the point where Alistair drew his sword, because that seemed like the moment that their conversation turned into something more significant.</p>
<p class="western">She wondered what Solona would have thought of all of this.</p>
<p class="western">She would always wonder that.</p>
<p class="western">With careful, measured movements, Alistair brought his sword down to rest on her shoulder, letting her feel the weight of it without placing it all upon her. Though she did not raise her head, she glanced up at the hilt. She knew this sword; it was legendary, and even if it hadn’t been, the glowing golden runes that ran down its blade marked it as unique.</p>
<p class="western">This was King Maric’s sword, the sword he had found during the Rebellion, the sword that had passed to King Cailan - the sword that his brother, Alistair, had used to sever Loghain Mac Tir’s head from his neck.</p>
<p class="western">“Salina Amell, on this day I name you Teyrn of Gwaren,” the King said, his voice seeming louder for the hushed silence that had fallen over the party. “Rise, Teyrn Amell, and stand welcome amongst my court.”</p>
<p class="western">When Salina rose, taking the hand that Alistair offered and shaking it, the awkward silence was broken by Leliana’s applause - then, the cheers of her squad, of the rest of Avery’s squad who were doubtless first to take up the call thereafter. She was drawn into congratulations from the Queen, from the Inquisitor, from those few who had pushed forward to bear witness to the ball’s unexpected drama.</p>
<p class="western">“We will have much to speak of,” the Queen said, surprising Salina by placing a hand on her shoulder. “I know that Anora will wish to speak to you as well. She’s been trying to get us to give the Teyrnir to someone for years. For now, enjoy your party. The Inquisition has earned it.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">Salina had not been to many noble parties when she was younger, but she had been to enough that she remembered that feeling of never having your feet steady. Of being pushed from person to person, stumbling through without pause. She found herself pulled off for dances by her squad, who span her past other couples - including the Inquisitor, who Salina spotted dancing with Ambassador Montilyet several times in a row.</p>
<p class="western">They never stopped smiling at each other. Maybe the Inquisitor had finally given up on hiding, too.</p>
<p class="western">Salina was caught up by groups of nobles, both Ferelden and Orlesian - even at one point by the Grand Duke Gaspard, who this time addressed her <em>very </em>correctly, commending her on her tactical knowledge and inviting her to dine with him if she ever had a mind to discuss military history. If it had been anyone else, she would’ve called it flirting. As it was, she mostly tried not to vomit at the intense stench of his cologne.</p>
<p class="western">And then, eventually, she managed to get her hand on the door out of the great hall, stumbling her way through into the gardens she’d helped restore at the Inquisitor’s behest.</p>
<p class="western">Here, it was quiet. Here, she could breathe again.</p>
<p class="western">She wandered through the gardens, looking at the plants the Inquisitor had filled it with, and wondering at a woman who could defeat an ancient Magister one moment and send a dress uniform to one of her soldiers the next. A woman who would charge into battle with her companions one day, then spend the next knelt beside these pots, tending them with the enduring patience of the best gardeners.</p>
<p class="western">Malika Cadash had, she was beginning to understand, quite a lot in common with Teyrn Loghain. Not that he’d liked gardening.</p>
<p class="western">“There you are - are you alright? I’ve been trying to get to you for hours, but those bloody Orlesians -”</p>
<p class="western">Turning, Salina lifted her head to see Cullen, hair askew, dressed in the same brilliant red jacket as the Inquisitor. The colour didn’t suit him in the slightest, but the shape of it did, all the moreso as he lifted his hand to rub the back of his neck.</p>
<p class="western">“Maker’s breath,” he said, stepping down into the garden with her. “You look...well, like nobility.”</p>
<p class="western">The gravity of what she’d done hit her then. She hadn’t even considered asking him what he thought first. You were meant to do that, weren’t you? People were meant to talk to each other when they were...whatever they were.</p>
<p class="western">“I’m having a very weird day,” Salina admitted, not knowing what else to say.</p>
<p class="western">“I’m supposed to bow, aren’t I,” Cullen said, looking at her, then down at himself. “Or...do something. I don’t know.”</p>
<p class="western">She cut him off by stepping forward and kissing him, pulling him close to her by the collar of his ridiculous jacket. For a moment he froze, but the next thing she knew he’d practically lifted her from the floor with the force of his grip around her waist.</p>
<p class="western">“I am so proud of you,” he said, the words coming out like a rush of breath.</p>
<p class="western">“W-what? Why?”</p>
<p class="western">Cullen laughed, and Salina wished again to hear the sound of it every moment for the rest of her life. He reached up and brushed his hand over the side of her face. “You didn’t ask anyone’s permission, did you? You thought of what you wanted, <em>you, </em>and you did it, and I - I am so proud of you.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">There was absolutely no one in the courtyard around the garden, which was good, because it probably wouldn’t help her reputation for her first act as Teyrn to be climbing the Inquisition’s Commander like a tree in public.</p>
<p class="western">But this silly, ridiculous man - this man who her sister had once described as <em>cute if it wasn’t for that terrible goatee </em>- who commanded armies as naturally as she ever had, and silently endured day after day of headaches and fatigue and trembling hands, who had opened up a part of himself that he’d kept closed off just to tell her she was safe...</p>
<p class="western">Was proud of her.</p>
<p class="western">Salina had pushed him all the way out of the gardens and onto one of the benches in the quad before she’d paused to wonder if he was okay - if he knew this was real. But in her moment’s hesitation, all Cullen did was pull her down onto his lap, kissing her as fiercely as he had behind closed doors.</p>
<p class="western">“It’s not that I didn’t want to talk to about it -”</p>
<p class="western">“I know.”</p>
<p class="western">“-it’s just it happened quickly and I think Leliana may have arranged the whole thing-”</p>
<p class="western">“Salina. Stop. Look at me.” He had pulled back from her, and was holding her face in his hands. “I trust you. Do you understand what that means?”</p>
<p class="western">Maker.</p>
<p class="western">She did.</p>
<p class="western">She understood what it meant to trust someone, anyone, after everything that had happened to her. She understood it because it was the feeling that had crept into her since the day Avery’s captain had fallen dead at their feet, since the day she’d woken up to see Cullen there protecting her from her own secrets.</p>
<p class="western">“I trust you,” Cullen said again, pressing his lips to her cheek, her brow, her nose. “Please believe that.”</p>
<p class="western">“I do,” she said, surprising herself, surprising both of them as she did all she could to climb closer to him, burying her face in his neck and holding on tightly.</p>
<p class="western">“Do you have to go back in there?”</p>
<p class="western">“Absolutely not.”</p>
<p class="western">“Then we make for my tower, and hope we don’t get stopped on the way. The soldiers are filling the courtyards.”</p>
<p class="western">Salina smiled against his cheek. “I think we can manage that.”</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">Becoming a Teyrn was, it turned out, a lot more than just having the King pat you on the shoulder with his sword.</p>
<p class="western">It took three months before she was even ready to set out for Gwaren, having spent the entire time filing reams of paperwork that she’d never even known existed. She might have grown up nobility, but she’d never seen noble life as an adult, and by Andraste’s tits there were a lot of people who wanted to know her precise lineage and exactly who would get what if she died.</p>
<p class="western">Fortunately, there were two good things about Denerim: Anora Mac Tir and Elyssa Cousland.</p>
<p class="western">The moment she’d arrived in Denerim, Salina had found herself Anora’s personal project. It was thanks to Anora that she’d managed to navigate all the paperwork, remember which glass you were and weren’t meant to drink out of at dinner, and memorise all of the names of the people in the court - plus the names of the people they were sleeping with. Frankly, she’d found siege warfare easier. Not to mention that Anora knew just how much of a mess Gwaren was, and could tell her all about what she was going into.</p>
<p class="western">Queen Cousland, meanwhile, proved to just - well, be nice to be around. Though she was rarely in Denerim, being focused on some kind of research for the Wardens that Salina had never quite managed to make out. But when she was there, she made a point, an obvious one, to be a friend to the woman who had abandoned her brother on the battlefield.</p>
<p class="western">On Salina’s last day in Denerim, as she was readying herself to ride to the boat that would take her around to her wildly inaccessible new home, there was a knock at the door to her rooms. Salina opened it to find the two women standing there, both holding things in their hands.</p>
<p class="western">“We won’t keep you long,” Elyssa said, passing over a long, narrow box, as Anora did the same with her far larger bundle. “We just wanted you to have these. We’ll say goodbye properly at the gates, but - you should open these here.”</p>
<p class="western">When they were gone, and Salina had opened the box from Elyssa, she quickly understood why - because the writing on the scroll contained within it was familiar. She’d looked at it every day for almost ten years. Sharp, and spiky, but stubbornly legible, she would recognise Loghain Mac Tir’s writing anywhere.</p>
<p class="western">It took her ten minutes to even feel able to take it out of the box; twenty more to digest what it said. It was the papers Leliana had mentioned - the records that the Teyrn had kept of everyone who had ever left his army, dead or alive. She found Dagan’s name, and Oliver’s, and Gheris’s, each of them noting simply that they had deserted and were to be executed if found.</p>
<p class="western">And hers.</p>
<p class="western">
  <em>Salina Amell, Captain, Siege Regiment. Lost in battle. Family uncontactable, but no effects to be passed.</em>
</p>
<p class="western">It made no sense. He’d done everything by the book - until he hadn’t, at least. She tried to reconcile the man she’d known with someone who would lie in paperwork just to stop a twenty-year-old girl from being killed at his order. She couldn’t.</p>
<p class="western">Beneath the scroll there was another piece of paper, one that looked to have been torn from a book of some kind, the holes from its binding still visible. It, too, had his handwriting. There were lines and lines of mundane news from training, the standard notes of an army’s commander, and a few that were specific to the Regency.</p>
<p class="western">But the lines that shone out at Salina the moment she spotted the shape of her own name made her collapse in the middle of the floor.</p>
<p class="western">
  <em>Appointed Amell as Captain of the siege regiment. Rendon thinks me foolish, but the girl knows what she’s doing. Give her a decade or two and she’ll be a better commander than he could ever hope to be.</em>
</p>
<p class="western">The gift from Anora was even harder to take.</p>
<p class="western">It was a far bigger bundle, far heavier, and when she began to unwrap it, she could see only layer after layer of crushed velvet. A note lay within the folds, explaining that the item had been given to her after her father’s passing, and that she wished to pass it on to its proper home.</p>
<p class="western">Salina pulled the velvet back with shaking fingers, her mind clocking the shape and size and weight of the bundle, and knowing with certainty what she was about to look at. When she reached the last layer, she found herself pausing, breathless, not knowing if she had the strength to turn aside that last wash of velvet.</p>
<p class="western">It had been polished since she’d last seen it - then, it had been covered in the mud and wear and tear of marching and of battle. Now, the shield was shining and resplendent, every inch of the silverite gleaming.</p>
<p class="western"><em>Maric gave him that shield, you know, </em>Dagan had told her once. <em>Had it made for the day he gave him the Teyrnir.</em></p>
<p class="western">And now - now it was hers.</p>
<p class="western">---</p>
<p class="western">It took years to restore Gwaren to what it had once been. It was no longer plagued by werewolf attacks from the surrounding forests, or threatened by other invaders, but years without a guardian over it had taken their toll. There was a council that ruled over the city, but it was infested with all manner of people that - on Anora’s advice - Salina carefully removed over the ensuing months.</p>
<p class="western">Every week, she received a package from Skyhold, always with at least one letter, and sometimes with more. Cullen wrote without fail, and the others...well, they tried their best. Once a year, she took a holiday in the summer, travelling to Denerim as was tradition for the Teyrnir - and each year, she ran through the halls of the palace until she could jump into the arms of the person who had helped her remember how to trust.</p>
<p class="western">Until Malika Cadash disbanded the Inquisition, and everything changed.</p>
<p class="western">There was no trip to Denerim that year. Instead, Salina stood on the docks of Gwaren and watched the ships come in. She watched them pour their cargo, be it crate or person, out onto the docks, her eyes scouring the moving cargo for familiar faces. <em>A </em>familiar face. It was hard to judge when a ship would arrive, but she was willing to stay out all day if she needed to.</p>
<p class="western">Then, at last, in the early afternoon - when she had started to tire and was mid-conversation with the harbormaster, listening to them tell her about the troubles with taxing some of the merchants - a ship sailed in. It was nothing fancy; a normal vessel, transporting a mixture of goods from the mainland of Ferelden, plus whoever had hired the few passenger berths.</p>
<p class="western">As they began to disembark, Salina’s eyes glanced idly over the harbormaster’s shoulder to see a crop of familiar sandy curls.</p>
<p class="western">And ran; not away, as she always had before.</p>
<p class="western">But towards.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you all so much for reading, and for your lovely feedback! &lt;3 I hope you enjoyed.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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